Questions tagged [topological-quantum-field-theory]

Topological quantum field theory.

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67 votes
14 answers
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A reading list for topological quantum field theory?

Can you suggest a reading list, or at least a few papers that you think would be useful, for a beginner in topological quantum field theory? I know what the curvature of a connection is, know basic ...
44 votes
4 answers
15k views

What is Chern-Simons theory?

What is Chern-Simons theory? I have read the wikipedia entry, but it's pretty physics-y and I wasn't really able to get any sense for what Chern-Simons theory really is in terms of mathematics. Chern-...
Kevin H. Lin's user avatar
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39 votes
9 answers
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Why are fusion categories interesting?

In the same vein as Kate and Scott's questions, why are fusion categories interesting? I know that given a "suitably nice" fusion category (which probably means adding adjectives such as "unitary," "...
Dave Penneys's user avatar
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37 votes
5 answers
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Usefulness of using TQFTs

What is a topological feature, that a (some) TQFT (e.g. in 3 or 4 dim) sees but homology/cohomology/homotopy groups don't? Or: what is an example where using classical theories is hard, but using a ...
ISH's user avatar
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36 votes
3 answers
4k views

What are D-branes, really?

In the past couple years, I've read many words pertaining to "D-branes" without feeling I have fully comprehended them. In broad terms, I think I get what they're about: They're supposed to serve as ...
Dan Kneezel's user avatar
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31 votes
8 answers
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Resources for graphical languages / Penrose notation / Feynman diagrams / birdtracks?

There is an idea I've recently gotten interested in that doesn't seem to have a good agreed-upon name ("diagrammatic algebra?"). It centers around the use of two-dimensional diagrams of dots, ...
26 votes
2 answers
4k views

What's the current state of the classification of not-fully-extended TQFTs?

Recall that a $(k,k+1,\dots,k+n)$-TQFT is (supposed to be) a functor from the $n$-category whose $j$-morphisms are (isomorphism classes of) compact $(k+j)$-dimensional manifolds with boundary to some ...
Theo Johnson-Freyd's user avatar
25 votes
1 answer
2k views

Reading list recommendation for a hep-ph student to start studying QFT at a more mathematically rigorous level?

Edition On July 15 2021, the description of the question has been considerably modified to meet the requirement of making this question more OP-independent and thus more useful for general readers. ...
Qi Tianluo's user avatar
24 votes
3 answers
3k views

Interpreting the CS/WZW correspondence

It is understood that there is a correspondence between the 3d Chern-Simons topological quantum field theory (TQFT) and the 2d Wess-Zumino-Witten conformal quantum field theory (CQFT). A good summary ...
Jamie Vicary's user avatar
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24 votes
1 answer
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When is a TQFT the dimensional reduction of a higher dimensional TQFT?

In Lurie's framework for TQFT's, a TQFT is a symmetric mondoial functor from $Cob_n(n)$ to some symmetric monoidal $n$-category $\mathcal{C}$. One can construct an $(n-1)$-dimensional TQFT from an $n$-...
skupers's user avatar
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23 votes
5 answers
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Do all 3D TQFTs come from Reshetikhin-Turaev?

The Reshetikhin-Turaev construction take as input a Modular Tensor Category (MTC) and spits out a 3D TQFT. I've been told that the other main construction of 3D TQFTs, the Turaev-Viro State sum ...
Chris Schommer-Pries's user avatar
23 votes
3 answers
3k views

How many definitions are there of the Jones polynomial?

Even with the connection to quantum groups being made clearer (I believe it was not known when the Jones polynomial was first introduced), it seems to me that still we don't have the "right" ...
John Pardon's user avatar
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21 votes
1 answer
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Fully extended TQFT and lattice models

I often read that fully extended TQFTs are supposed to classify topological phases of matter. So I would like to understand the formal nature of fully extended TQFTs on a more direct physical level (...
Andi Bauer's user avatar
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21 votes
2 answers
871 views

Define the 3d Chern-Simons TQFT on a discrete simplicial complex

Question: What is the challenge and the current status to define the 3d Chern-Simons(-Witten) (CSW) theory on a simplicial complex or on a discrete lattice? (Or is there a no-go or an obstruction ...
wonderich's user avatar
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20 votes
2 answers
1k views

Cohomology rings and 2D TQFTs

There is a "folk theorem" (alternatively, a fun and easy exercise) which asserts that a 2D TQFT is the same as a commutative Frobenius algebra. Now, to every compact oriented manifold $X$ we can ...
Kevin H. Lin's user avatar
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20 votes
1 answer
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Calculating 6j-symbols (aka Racah-Wigner coefficients) for quantum groups

Which $6j$-symbols for quantised enveloping algebras are known explicitly? The quantum $6j$-symbols for $sl(2)$ are well-known. The references are Masbaum and Vogel and Frenkel and Khovanov. What ...
Bruce Westbury's user avatar
20 votes
0 answers
769 views

Is the determinant of cohomology a TQFT?

If $M$ is an oriented $d$-manifold, let $D(M)$ denote the top exterior power of $H^*(M,\mathbf{C})$. Then $D(M_1 \amalg M_2) = D(M_1) \otimes D(M_2)$. Is there a good recipe for a map $D(M) \to D(N)$...
David Treumann's user avatar
19 votes
4 answers
2k views

What's the right way to think about "anomalies" in 3d TQFTs?

3d TQFTs constructed from modular tensor categories don't in general give an honest 3d TQFT, instead they have an "anomaly." My vague understanding from Kevin Walker's talks and from skimming Freed-...
Noah Snyder's user avatar
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19 votes
1 answer
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How is Chern-Simons theory related to Floer homology?

Chern-Simons theory (say, with gauge group $G$) is the quantum theory of the Chern-Simons functional $$CS(A)=\frac{k}{8\pi^2}\int_M \text{Tr}\left(A\wedge dA + \frac{2}{3}A\wedge A \wedge A\right)$$ ...
Henry's user avatar
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19 votes
1 answer
1k views

What happened to the Vacuum Hypothesis in TQFT?

I remember that in the beginning, there was an axiom for $(n+1)$-dimensional TQFT that said that the state space $V(\Sigma)$ assigned to an $n$-dimensional oriented manifold is spanned by the ...
Charlie Frohman's user avatar
19 votes
0 answers
834 views

What is the status of the cobordism hypothesis?

Let $\mathscr{C}$ be a symmetric monoidal (weak) $n$-category. A framed extended TQFT of dimension $n$ with values in $\mathscr{C}$ is a symmetric monoidal functor from the framed bordism $n$-category ...
Miguel I. Solano's user avatar
18 votes
3 answers
2k views

How to calculate the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev invariants from a triangulation?

I'm interested in the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev invariants for 3-manifolds, and in particular, how to calculate them from a triangulation of the 3-manifold (recall that as they were first introduced, ...
John Pardon's user avatar
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18 votes
1 answer
496 views

How aggressive is the fibrant replacement of $\mathrm{Bord}_n$?

Lurie (On the Classification of Topological Field Theories), with some corrections by Calaque and Scheimbauer (A note on the $(\infty,n)$-category of cobordisms), famously constructed a symmetric ...
Theo Johnson-Freyd's user avatar
17 votes
2 answers
1k views

What are some mathematical consequences of the study of 6D $\mathcal N = (2,0)$ SCFT?

Arguments made in physics apparently predict the existence of a family of six-dimensional $\mathcal N = (2,0)$ superconformal field theories (Wikipedia, nLab, PhysicsOverflow) sometimes called Theory $...
Arun Debray's user avatar
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17 votes
0 answers
993 views

"Next steps" after TQFT?

(Disclaimer: I'm rather nervous that this isn't appropriate for MathOverflow, but given the contents of my question I don't really know a better place to ask something like this.) Recently, I've been ...
Nicholas James's user avatar
16 votes
3 answers
2k views

Why is a Topological Field Theory equivalent to a Frobenius algebra?

How can a physicist understand a 2-dimensional topological field theory as a Frobenius algebra? Are there some explicit examples in order to understand this relation? The definition (e.g. on ...
Gorbz's user avatar
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16 votes
2 answers
1k views

How are the Walker-Wang TQFT and the Crane-Yetter TQFT related?

Mathematical physicists in solid state physics and topological insulators talk a lot about Walker-Wang models, which are a family of Hamiltonians defined on a 3d lattice. Unfortunately, the original ...
Manuel Bärenz's user avatar
16 votes
2 answers
5k views

Learning roadmap to TQFT from a mathematics perspective

I had asked a question on math.stackexchange but did not receive any answers. I hope that this question is appropriate for this website as it is about an advanced subject. Hence I am posting it below. ...
user90041's user avatar
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16 votes
0 answers
418 views

Do TQFTs give a complete set of invariants of manifolds?

An $n$-dimensional TQFT is a representation of the category $n$Cob of $n$-dimensional cobordisms. TQFTs are important sources of invariants of manifolds, and such invariants are highly computable by ...
Henry's user avatar
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15 votes
3 answers
2k views

Reshetikhin-Turaev as a 3-2-1-theory

I keep reading that the Reshetikhin-Turaev construction actually yields a 3-2-1 tqft. I know the construction that associates to a suitably decorated surface a vector space built up from a hom-space ...
Ulrich Pennig's user avatar
15 votes
2 answers
2k views

Relationship between the TQFTs in Kapustin-Witten and Ben-Zvi-Sakellaridis-Venkatesh

In upcoming work of Ben-Zvi-Sakellaridis-Venkatesh, (see for instance these notes or this lecture) some important aspects of the Langlands correspondence are stated in the language of topological ...
Anton Hilado's user avatar
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15 votes
1 answer
674 views

Practical consequences of the geometric cobordism hypothesis

As far as I understand, the cobordism hypothesis provides a construction of all (appropriately defined) fully-extended TQFTs. In particular, given a fully-dualizable object in a certain category, one ...
Confused Physicist's user avatar
15 votes
1 answer
1k views

Are bundle gerbes bundles of algebras?

The category of line bundles (possibly with connection) on a smooth manifold M can be defined in two different ways: The first definition uses transition functions that satisfy a cocycle condition (...
Dmitri Pavlov's user avatar
14 votes
3 answers
2k views

Motivation and unsolved problems of TQFT

I have been studying topological quantum field theory by mainly reading the Turaev's book. I'd like to know if there are unsolved problems that motivate mathematicians to study TQFT, like Riemann's ...
14 votes
2 answers
459 views

Lagrangian of Reshetikhin-Turaev TFT's

One of the results from the Reshetikhin-Turaev package is that given a modular tensor category $\mathscr{C}$ one can construct a TFT $Z$. In the case where $\mathscr{C}$ is the category of positive ...
Alonso Perez Lona's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
3k views

Witten's topological twisting

I am reading the Witten's topological twisting for $N = 2$ Superconformal Field Theory(SCFT) http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9112056 In this paper Witten constructed 2 TQFTs i.e. A-model and B-model from ...
J Verma's user avatar
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14 votes
1 answer
628 views

Is there a PL, or topological, bordism hypothesis?

The bordism hypothesis says that the $(\infty, n)$-category of smooth, framed $n$-bordisms, $(n-1)$-dimensional boundaries, and corners down to points, is freely generated symmetric monoidal with ...
Manuel Bärenz's user avatar
14 votes
2 answers
694 views

Is a unitary Hamiltonian TQFT the same as a unitary axiomatic TQFT?

Introduction Axiomatic TQFTs An axiomatic $n$-dimensional TQFT is a symmetric monoidal functor $\mathcal{Z}\colon \operatorname{Bord}_n \to \operatorname{Hilb}$ from $n$-dimensional oriented ...
Manuel Bärenz's user avatar
14 votes
2 answers
914 views

Homotopy Fixed Points of SO(2) on Fully Dualizable Algebras

Note: by fixed points, I always mean homotopy fixed points. As explained in Jacob Lurie's paper on the cobordism hypothesis, we have an action of O(2) on the $\infty $-groupoid $X$ given by ...
Sam Gunningham's user avatar
14 votes
0 answers
525 views

What is the (quasi-) classical limit of categorified quantum groups?

$\newcommand{\g}{\mathfrak g}$ Let $G$ be a reductive group and $U_q(\g)$ the associated quantum group. One can argue that the classical limit of $U_q(\g)$ is $G$ or $\g$, with some Poisson structure, ...
Adrien's user avatar
  • 8,234
13 votes
2 answers
826 views

Classifying TQFTs with 1d vector spaces

To what extent have people classified $n$-dimensional TQFTs that assign a 1-dimensional vector space to every compact oriented $(n-1)$-manifold? I have some vague reasons to suspect that the ...
John Baez's user avatar
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13 votes
2 answers
502 views

How unique are extensions of TQFTs to lower dimension?

Say I have an "ordinary" TQFT $F$ of dimension $n$, assigning groups or vector spaces to closed $(n-1)$-manifolds and linear maps to cobordisms. Consider the different ways $F$ can be obtained from a ...
Andy Manion's user avatar
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13 votes
1 answer
301 views

Does the Turaev-Viro theory for the generalized $E_6$ subfactor for $\mathbb{Z}/7$ distinguish $L(7,1)$ and $L(7,2)$?

In the paper Sato-Wakui "COMPUTATIONS OF TURAEV-VIRO-OCNEANU INVARIANTS OF 3-MANIFOLDS FROM SUBFACTORS" they compute certain Turaev-Viro-Ocneanu invariants of certain lens spaces. One of the results ...
Chris Schommer-Pries's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
643 views

Spin TQFT's in dimensions (1+1)

I don't seem to be able to find anything written about Spin TQFT's in dimension (1+1). Does anyone know any references? Or is there some reason it is uninteresting?
Oscar Randal-Williams's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
1k views

Why Lagrangian cobordism?

There are a good number of quantum topology papers in which a TQFT-like set-up is constructed as a functor to the category of vector spaces from some category of cobordisms which satisfy some "...
Daniel Moskovich's user avatar
12 votes
2 answers
717 views

What do decategorification and "compactification on a circle" have to do with each other?

Some physicists have told me that if you think about an extended n-dimensional TQFT $F$, then the decategorification is given by $F'(X)=F(X\times S^1)$, which I believe they call "compactification on ...
Ben Webster's user avatar
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12 votes
3 answers
833 views

Can triangulations (or some related combinatorial structure) distinguish smooth structures on $RP^4$?

There are exotic versions of $RP^4$, constructed by Cappell-Shaneson, which are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the standard $RP^4$. One way to distinguish them is via the $\eta$ invariant of $...
Joe's user avatar
  • 535
12 votes
1 answer
538 views

Alternative approaches to topological QFTs

A while ago I read the paper 'Quantum Field Theory and the Jones Polynomial' by Edward Witten. This article uses a lot of concepts from physics like BRST symmetry and the Chern-Simons action which ...
Hollis Williams's user avatar
12 votes
2 answers
1k views

Turaev-Viro extended TQFT

Hi I am looking for any papers which extends the Turaev-Viro TQFT to a 3-2-1 theory (i.e. allows manifolds with corners) . I know this construction is known, but I cannot find a source. Please help. ...
user1654's user avatar
  • 121
12 votes
1 answer
566 views

Compactification of 6d (2, 0) SCFT on 4-manifolds

This question is about the 6d (2, 0) superconformal field theory (also called 'theory X' by some people). This SCFT, which can be considered as a relative quantum field theory (see here for a ...
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