English

Open 2D TFTs admit initial open-closed extensions

Algebraic Topology 2025-10-28 v2 Category Theory Geometric Topology

Abstract

We show that any open 2-dimensional topological field theory valued in a symmetric monoidal \infty-category (with suitable colimits) extends canonically to an open-closed field theory whose value at the circle is the Hochschild homology object of its value at the disk. As a corollary, we obtain an action of the moduli spaces of surfaces on the Hochschild homology object of E1E_1-Calabi-Yau algebras. This provides a space level refinement of previous work of Costello over Q\mathbb{Q} and Wahl-Westerland and Wahl over Z\mathbb{Z}, and serves as a crucial ingredient to Lurie's "non-compact cobordism hypothesis" in dimension 2. As part of the proof we also give a description of slice categories of the d-dimensional bordism category with boundary, which may be of independent interest.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.02553,
  title  = {Open 2D TFTs admit initial open-closed extensions},
  author = {Shaul Barkan and Jan Steinebrunner and Adela YiYu Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.02553},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

45 pages (37 plus appendix), 12 figures. v2: added references and other improvements to introduction

R2 v1 2026-07-01T05:17:46.770Z