English

A comparison between $SL_n$ spider categories

Geometric Topology 2025-08-27 v5 Quantum Algebra

Abstract

We prove a conjecture of L\^{e} and Sikora by providing a comparison between various existing SLnSL_n skein theories. While doing so, we show that the full subcategory of the spider category, Sp(SLn)\mathcal{S}p(SL_n), defined by Cautis-Kamnitzer-Morrison, whose objects are monoidally generated by the standard representation and its dual, is equivalent as a spherical braided category to Sikora's quotient category. This also answers a question from Morrison's Ph.D. thesis. Finally, we show that the skein modules associated to the CKM and Sikora's webs are isomorphic.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2210.09289,
  title  = {A comparison between $SL_n$ spider categories},
  author = {Anup Poudel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.09289},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

30 pages, some changes made to the structure of the paper. To appear in Canadian Journal of Math

R2 v1 2026-06-28T03:50:42.766Z