Related papers: Universal manifold pairings and positivity

In the late 1980s Witten used the Chern-Simons form of a connection to construct new invariants of 3-manifolds and knots, recovering in particular the Jones invariants. Since then the associated topological quantum field theory (TQFT) has…

We study Quot schemes of vector bundles on algebraic curves. Marian and Oprea gave a description of a topological quantum field theory (TQFT) studied by Witten in terms of intersection numbers on Quot schemes of trivial bundles. Since these…

We determine the $d+1$ dimensional topological field theory, which encodes the higher-form symmetries and their 't Hooft anomalies for $d$-dimensional QFTs obtained by compactifying M-theory on a non-compact space $X$. The resulting theory,…

We propose a new non-perturbative method for studying UV complete unitary quantum field theories (QFTs) with a mass gap in general number of spacetime dimensions. The method relies on unitarity formulated as positive semi-definiteness of…

Gauging is a powerful operation on symmetries in quantum field theory (QFT), as it connects distinct theories and also reveals hidden structures in a given theory. We initiate a systematic investigation of gauging discrete generalized…

We show how extended topological quantum field theories (TQFTs) can be used to obtain a kinematical setup for quantum gravity, i.e. a kinematical Hilbert space together with a representation of the observable algebra including operators of…

We construct a new family of exact quantum field theories modeled on hyperbolic geometry, called {\it quantum hyperbolic field theories} (QHFTs). The QHFTs are defined for a $(2+1)$-bordism category based on the set of compact oriented…

In this article, we classify (non-compact) $3$-manifolds with uniformly positive scalar curvature. Precisely, we show that an oriented $3$-manifold has a complete metric with uniformly positive scalar curvature if and only if it is…

We show for any oriented surface, possibly with a boundary, how to generalize Kramers-Wannier duality to the world of quantum groups. The generalization is motivated by quantization of Poisson-Lie T-duality from the string theory.…

We study a connection between duality and topological field theories. First, 2d Kramers-Wannier duality is formulated as a simple 3d topological claim (more or less Poincar\'e duality), and a similar formulation is given for…

In this paper, we establish the general theory of (2+1)-dimensional topological quantum field theory (in short, TQFT) with a Verlinde basis. It is a consequence that we have a Dehn surgery formula for 3-manifold invariants for this kind of…

Main Theorem (3.3): Let $M$ be a compact four-dimensional manifold either with curvature, positive on complex isotropic two-planes, or self-dual of positive scalar curvature. If $\pi_1 (M)$ admits a nontrivial unitary representation, and…

Consider a d-dimensional quantum field theory (QFT) $\mathfrak{T}$, with a generalized symmetry $\mathcal{S}$, which may or may not be invertible. We study the action of $\mathcal{S}$ on generalized or $q$-charges, i.e. $q$-dimensional…

The gauge symmetry of classical general relativity under space-time diffeomorphisms implies that any path integral quantization which can be interpreted as a sum over space-time geometries, gives rise to a formal invariant of smooth…

We study a connection between duality and topological field theories. First, 2d Kramers-Wannier duality is formulated as a simple 3d topological claim (more or less Poincare duality), and a similar formulation is given for…

Let $\pi$ be a group satisfying the Farrell-Jones conjecture and assume that $B\pi$ is a 4-dimensional Poincar\'e duality space. We consider topological, closed, connected manifolds with fundamental group $\pi$ whose canonical map to $B\pi$…

Any two infinite-dimensional (separable) Hilbert spaces are unitarily isomorphic. The sets of all their self-adjoint operators are also therefore unitarily equivalent. Thus if all self-adjoint operators can be observed, and if there is no…

We explore a novel interpretation of Symmetry Topological Field Theories (SymTFTs) as theories of gravity, proposing a holographic duality where the bulk SymTFT (with the gauging of a suitable Lagrangian algebra) is dual to the universal…

We present some ideas for a possible Noncommutative Topological Quantum Field Theory (NCTQFT) and Noncommutative Floer Homology (NCFH). Our motivation is two-fold and it comes both from physics and mathematics: On the one hand we argue that…

In this paper, we develop a quantum theory of homogeneously curved tetrahedron geometry, by applying the combinatorial quantization to the phase space of tetrahedron shapes defined in arXiv:1506.03053. Our method is based on the relation…