Line Operators in $U(1|1)$ Chern-Simons Theory
Abstract
We analyze the non-semisimple category of line operators in Chern-Simons gauge theories based off the Lie superalgebra . Our proposal is that the category of line operators can be identified with the derived category of modules for a boundary vertex operator algebra realized as a certain infinite-order simple current extension of the affine current algebra by boundary monopole operators. By translating this simple current extension of to the unrolled, restricted quantum group , we show that our category of line operators admits a second description in terms of a quasi-quantum group realized by uprolling. We also compare our results across an expected physical duality with the cyclic orbifold of a free, -twisted hypermultiplet and find a slight discrepancy at the level of braiding and associator. We end with a detailed analysis of coupling to background flat connections and the resulting category of non-genuine line operators.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2304.05414,
title = {Line Operators in $U(1|1)$ Chern-Simons Theory},
author = {Niklas Garner and Wenjun Niu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.05414},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
The accepted version for Communications in Mathematical Physics. Corrected an error related to the associator of $\mathcal{A}$. We thank the anonymous referees for very helpful comments!