Related papers: Higher-Dimensional Algebra I: Braided Monoidal 2-C…
This paper introduces the concept of distorted monoidal categories, a generalization of monoidal and braided monoidal categories that supports non-reversible and direction-sensitive tensor structures. Unlike the classical setting, where the…
The centre of a monoidal category is a braided monoidal category. Monoidal categories are monoidal objects (or pseudomonoids) in the monoidal bicategory of categories. This paper provides a universal construction in a braided monoidal…
This work is the first one in a series, in which we develop a mathematical theory of enriched (braided) monoidal categories and their representations. In this work, we introduce the notion of the $E_0$-center ($E_1$-center or $E_2$-center)…
We introduce the notion of a braiding on a skew monoidal category, whose curious feature is that the defining isomorphisms involve three objects rather than two. These braidings are shown to arise from, and classify, cobraidings (also known…
Just as knots and links can be algebraically described as certain morphisms in the category of tangles in 3 dimensions, compact surfaces smoothly embedded in R^4 can be described as certain 2-morphisms in the 2-category of `2-tangles in 4…
The Hecke algebras for all symmetric groups taken together form a braided monoidal category that controls all quantum link invariants of type A and, by extension, the standard canon of topological quantum field theories in dimension 3 and…
We categorify the notion of an infinitesimal braiding in a linear strict symmetric monoidal category, leading to the notion of a (strict) infinitesimal 2-braiding in a linear symmetric strict monoidal 2-category. We describe the associated…
We give an alternative presentation of braided monoidal categories. Instead of the usual associativity and braiding we have just one constraint (the b-structure). In the unital case, the coherence conditions for a b-structure are shown to…
This is a report on aspects of the theory and use of monoidal categories. The first section introduces the main concepts through the example of the category of vector spaces. String notation is explained and shown to lead naturally to a…
We show that braided, sylleptic and symmetric monoidal bicategories are precisely the $\mathsf{E}_k$-monoids in the cartesian monoidal $(\infty,1)$-category of bicategories for respective integers $k$. To manage the underlying computations,…
A linear Gr-category is a category of finite-dimensional vector spaces graded by a finite group together with natural tensor product. We classify the braided monoidal structures of a class of linear Gr-categories via explicit computations…
A braided monoidal category may be considered a $3$-category with one object and one $1$-morphism. In this paper, we show that, more generally, $3$-categories with one object and $1$-morphisms given by elements of a group $G$ correspond to…
In this paper we describe a general framework for constructing examples of locally linear semistrict monoidal 2-categories covering many examples appearing in link homology theory. The main input datum is a closed foam evaluation formula.…
We present a method of constructing monoidal, braided monoidal, and symmetric monoidal bicategories from corresponding types of monoidal double categories that satisfy a lifting condition. Many important monoidal bicategories arise…
We associate to a braided 2-stack ${\cal C}$ a torsor, endowed with a symmetric cube structure (or $\Sigma$-structure), whose triviality is equivalent to the existence on ${\cal C}$ of a fully symmetric monoidal structure. In order to…
Let $A$ be an algebra over a commutative ring $k$. We compute the center of the category of $A$-bimodules. There are six isomorphic descriptions: the center equals the weak center, and can be described as categories of noncommutative…
Following the theory of principal $\infty$-bundles of Niklaus-Schreiber-Steveson, we develop a homotopy categorification of Hopf algebras, which model quantum groups. We study their higher-representation theory in the setting of…
In this survey paper we give account of several approaches to the strictification and non-strictification of monoidal categories, which are constructions that turn a monoidal category into a (non-)strict one monoidally equivalent to the…
We provide a complete generators and relations presentation of the 2-dimensional extended unoriented and oriented bordism bicategories as symmetric monoidal bicategories. Thereby we classify these types of 2-dimensional extended topological…
We denote the monoidal bicategory of two-sided modules (also called profunctors, bimodules and distributors) between categories by $\mathrm{Mod}$; the tensor product is cartesian product of categories. For a groupoid $\scr{G}$, we study the…