Mixed Verlinde Categories and 4-Manifold Invariants [VENUE: Univ. Bonn, Lipschitz Saal, Endenicher Allee 60]

Reshetikhin and Tuarev constructed invariants of 3-manifolds from braided tensor categories of quantum group representations in characteristic zero. Expanding on their construction, several invariants of 4-manifolds based on braided tensor categories have been introduced. My talk will be centered around the mixed Verlinde categories, which are braided tensor categories derived from quantum $\mathfrak{sl}_2$ in positive characteristic. In particular, I will explain why they are natural inputs for the aforementioned invariants of 4-manifolds.