English

Picard groups in rational conformal field theory

Category Theory 2008-11-26 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory Mathematical Physics math.MP Quantum Algebra

Abstract

Algebra and representation theory in modular tensor categories can be combined with tools from topological field theory to obtain a deeper understanding of rational conformal field theories in two dimensions: It allows us to establish the existence of sets of consistent correlation functions, to demonstrate some of their properties in a model-independent manner, and to derive explicit expressions for OPE coefficients and coefficients of partition functions in terms of invariants of links in three-manifolds. We show that a Morita class of (symmetric special) Frobenius algebras AA in a modular tensor category \calc\calc encodes all data needed to describe the correlators. A Morita-invariant formulation is provided by module categories over \calc\calc. Together with a bimodule-valued fiber functor, the system (tensor category + module category) can be described by a weak Hopf algebra. The Picard group of the category \calc\calc can be used to construct examples of symmetric special Frobenius algebras. The Picard group of the category of AA-bimodules describes the internal symmetries of the theory and allows one to identify generalized Kramers-Wannier dualities.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0411507,
  title  = {Picard groups in rational conformal field theory},
  author = {Jürg Fröhlich and Jürgen Fuchs and Ingo Runkel and Christoph Schweigert},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0411507},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

Invited talk by C.S. at the conference on Non-commutative geometry and representation theory in mathematical physics (Karlstad, Sweden, July 2004). To appear in the proceedings