Topological Quantum Field Theory Seminar  

27/10/2010, 14:00 — 15:00 — Room P3.10, Mathematics Building
Jeffrey Morton, Instituto Superior Técnico

Groupoidification in Physics

The Baez-Dolan groupoidification program describes linear-algebraic structures as reflections of those found in a category whose objects are groupoids, and whose morphisms are spans of groupoids. An extension of this program represents those structures in a 2-category of 2-vector spaces. Since quantum physics relies heavily on the category of Hilbert spaces, it has been possible to describe certain toy physical systems in this setting. The talk will describe these in terms of groupoids and spans with intrinsic combinatorial and geometric interest, and discuss how the 2-categorical extension applies in these models, including exotic statistics, and applications to 3D quantum gravity.