Representation Theory Seminar - Modular Tensor Categories

Modular tensor categories encode the topological symmetries of 2-dimensional bosonic topological phases of matter, as the algebraic underpinnings of 2+1 dimensional topological quantum field theories (TQFTs). As such, they play a key role in the topological model for quantum computation. I will describe the main constructions of modular tensor categories, a few classification results and some open questions.