arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to P. Turner.
In this short note we provide a review of some developments in the area of homotopy quantum field theories, loosely based on a talk given by the second author at the Xth Oporto Meeting on Geometry, Topology and Physics.
We study a variation of Turaev's homotopy quantum field theories using 2-categories of surfaces. We define the homotopy surface 2-category of a space $X$ and define an $\cS_X$-structure to be a monoidal 2-functor from this to the 2-category of idempotent-complete additive $k$-linear categories. We initiate the study of the algebraic structure arising from these functors. In particular we show that, under certain conditions, an $\cS_X$-structure gives rise to a lax tortile $π$-category when the background space is an Eilenberg-Maclane space $X=K(π,1)$, and to a tortile category with lax $π_2X$-action when the background space is simply-connected.
We introduce the homotopy surface category of a space which generalizes the 1+1-dimensional cobordism category of circles and surfaces to the situation where one introduces a background space. We explain how for a simply connected background space, monoidal functors from this category to vector spaces can be interpreted in terms of Frobenius algebras with additional structure.