Math and Physics

In topological quantum computing, information is encoded in "knotted" quantum states of topological phases of matter, thus being locked into topology to prevent decay. Topological precision has been confirmed in quantum Hall liquids by experiments to an accuracy of $10^{-10}$, and harnessed to stabilize quantum memory. In this survey, we discuss the conceptual development of this interdisciplinary field at the juncture of mathematics, physics and computer science. Our focus i...

Few physical systems with topologies more complicated than simple gaussian linking have been explored in detail. Here we focus on examples with higher topologies in non-relativistic quantum mechanics and in QCD.

This is an article on the interaction between topology and physics which will appear in 1998 in a book called: A History of Topology, edited by Ioan James and published by Elsevier-North Holland.

The inevitability of Chern--Simons terms in constructing a variety of physical models, and the mathematical advances they in turn generate, illustrates the unexpected but profound interactions between the two disciplines.

This paper is an exposition of the new subject of String Topology. We present an introduction to this exciting new area, as well as a survey of some of the latest developments, and our views about future directions of research. We begin with reviewing the seminal paper of Chas and Sullivan, which started String Topology by introducing a BV-algebra structure on the homology of a loop space of a manifold, then discuss the homotopy theoretic approach to String Topology, using th...

This thesis provides an introduction to the various category theory ideas employed in topological quantum field theory. These theories are viewed as symmetric monoidal functors from topological cobordism categories into the category of vector spaces. In two dimensions, they are classified by Frobenius algebras. In three dimensions, and under certain conditions, they are classified by modular categories. These are special kinds of categories in which topological notions such a...

To appear in Encyclopedia of Mathematical Physics, published by Elsevier in early 2006. Comments/corrections welcome. The article surveys topological aspects in gauge theories.

This paper is an expanded version of a talk given at the XIX International Colloquium on Group Theoretical Methods in Physics, Salamanca, July, 1992. We discuss the geometry of topological terms in classical actions, which by themselves form the actions of topological field theories. We first treat the Chern-Simons action directly. Then we explain how the geometry is best understood via integration of smooth Deligne cocycles. We conclude with some remarks about the correspo...

Recent progress in string theory has led to a reformulation of quantum-group polynomial invariants for knots and links into new polynomial invariants whose coefficients can be understood in topological terms. We describe in detail how to construct the new polynomials and we conjecture their general structure. This leads to new conjectures on the algebraic structure of the quantum-group polynomial invariants. We also describe the geometrical meaning of the coefficients in term...

By considering specific limits in the gauge coupling constant of pure Yang--Mills dynamics, it is shown how there exist topological quantum field theory sectors in such systems defining nonperturbative topological configurations of the gauge fields which could well play a vital role in the confinement and chiral symmetry breaking phenomena of phenomenologically realistic theories such as quantum chromodynamics, the theory for the strong interactions of quarks and gluons. A ge...