English

Is Crane--Yetter fully extended?

Mathematical Physics 2025-06-06 v1 Algebraic Topology Category Theory math.MP Quantum Algebra

Abstract

We revisit the question of whether the Crane-Yetter topological quantum field theory (TQFT) associated to a modular tensor category admits a fully extended refinement. More specifically, we use tools from stable homotopy theory to classify extensions of invertible four-dimensional TQFTs to theories valued in symmetric monoidal 4-categories whose Picard spectrum has nontrivial homotopy only in degrees 0 and 4. We show that such extensions are classified by two pieces of data: an equivalence class of an invertible object in the target and a sixth root of unity. Applying this result to the 4-category BrFus\mathbf{BrFus} of braided fusion categories, we find that there are infinitely many equivalence classes of fully extended invertible TQFTs reproducing the Crane-Yetter partition function on top-dimensional manifolds, parametrized by a Z/6\mathbb{Z}/6-extension of the Witt group of nondegenerate braided fusion categories. This analysis clarifies common claims in the literature and raises the question of how to naturally pick out the SO(4)SO(4)-fixed point data on the framed TQFT which assigns the input braided fusion category to the point so that it selects the Crane-Yetter state-sum.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2506.04864,
  title  = {Is Crane--Yetter fully extended?},
  author = {Luuk Stehouwer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.04864},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

19 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-01T03:01:08.473Z