July 12: Turaev-Viro TQFTs via planar algebras

Chris Schommer-Pries

In this talk we will explain the Turaev-Viro-Ocneanu construction which takes as input a certain kind of tensor category and produces a 3D topological field theory. We will do this using the yoga of planar algebras which was introduced last time. Along the way we will explore the connection between tensor categories and planar algebras, and hopefully by the end we will have several concrete examples to play with.