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The Arf-Brown TQFT of Pin$^-$ Surfaces

Mathematical Physics 2018-11-09 v1 Strongly Correlated Electrons High Energy Physics - Theory Algebraic Topology math.MP

Abstract

The Arf-Brown invariant AB(Σ)\mathit{AB}(\Sigma) is an 8th root of unity associated to a surface Σ\Sigma equipped with a pin^- structure. In this note we investigate a certain fully extended, invertible, topological quantum field theory (TQFT) whose partition function is the Arf-Brown invariant. Our motivation comes from the recent work of Freed-Hopkins on the classification of topological phases, of which the Arf-Brown TQFT provides a nice example of the general theory; physically, it can be thought of as the low energy effective theory of the Majorana chain, or as the anomaly theory of a free fermion in 1 dimension.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.1803.11183,
  title  = {The Arf-Brown TQFT of Pin$^-$ Surfaces},
  author = {Arun Debray and Sam Gunningham},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.11183},
  year   = {2018}
}