Geometry and Physics Seminar

The classification of 2D gapped topological phases with long range entanglement has received a lot of attention. As in any classification problem, an important step is to find good invariants. An interesting candidate is the (modular) tensor category describing the physical properties of the anyonic excitations of the topological states. In this talk I will outline how one can obtain this tensor category from first principles, and how one can show that it indeed is an invariant of the phase. Based on joint work with Matthew Cha and Bruno Nachtergaele.