Galois Theory for Braided Tensor Categories and the Modular Closure
Abstract
Description
Given a braided tensor *-category C with conjugate (dual) objects and irreducible unit together with a full symmetric subcategory S we define a crossed product C\rtimes S. This construction yields a tensor *-category with conjugates and an irreducible unit. (A *-category is a category enriched over Vect_C with positive *-operation.) A Galois correspondence is established between intermediate categories sitting between C and C\rtimes S and closed subgroups of the Galois group Gal(C\rtimes S/C)=Aut_C(C\rtimes S) of C, the latter being isomorphic to the compact group associated to S by the duality theorem of Doplicher and Roberts. Denoting by D\subset C the full subcategory of degenerate objects, i.e. objects which have trivial monodromy with all objects of C, the braiding of C extends to a braiding of C\rtimes S iff S\subset D. Under this condition C\rtimes S has no degenerate objects iff S=D. If the original category C is rational (i.e. has only finitely many equivalence classes of irreducible objects) then the same holds for the new one. The category C\rtimes D is called the modular closure of C since in the rational case it is modular, i.e. gives rise to a unitary representation of the modular group SL(2,Z). (In passing we prove that every braided tensor *-category with conjugates automatically is a ribbon category, i.e. has a twist.) If all simple objects of S have dimension one the structure of the category C\rtimes S can be clarified quite explicitly in terms of group cohomology.
latex2e, 39 pages. Style file included via filecontents command. Final version, to appear in Adv. Math. Purely notational improvements
latex2e, 39 pages. Style file included via filecontents command. Final version, to appear in Adv. Math. Purely notational improvements