English

String Condensations in 3+1D and Lagrangian Algebras

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2023-11-17 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory Category Theory Quantum Algebra

Abstract

We present three Lagrangian algebras in the modular 2-category associated to the 3+1D Z2\mathbb{Z}_2 topological order and discuss their physical interpretations, connecting algebras with gapped boundary conditions, and interestingly, maps (braided autoequivalences) exchanging algebras with bulk domain walls. A Lagrangian algebra, together with its modules and local modules, encapsulates detailed physical data of strings condensing at a gapped boundary. In particular, the condensed strings can terminate at boundaries in non-trivial ways. This phenomenon has no lower dimensional analogue and corresponds to novel mathematical structures associated to higher algebras. We provide a layered construction and also explicit lattice realizations of these boundaries and illustrate the correspondence between physics and mathematics of these boundary conditions. This is a first detailed study of the mathematics of Lagrangian algebras in modular 2-categories and their corresponding physics, that brings together rich phenomena of string condensations, gapped boundaries and domain walls in 3+1D topological orders.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2208.07865,
  title  = {String Condensations in 3+1D and Lagrangian Algebras},
  author = {Jiaheng Zhao and Jia-Qi Lou and Zhi-Hao Zhang and Ling-Yan Hung and Liang Kong and Yin Tian},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.07865},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

7+17 pages, 16 figures. Comments are welcome

R2 v1 2026-06-25T01:44:48.753Z