$SO(N)_2$ Braid group representations are Gaussian

We give a description of the centralizer algebras for tensor powers of spin objects in the pre-modular categories $SO(N)_2$ (for $N$ odd) and $O(N)_2$ (for $N$ even) in terms of quantum $(n-1)$-tori, via non-standard deformations of $Umathfrak{so}_N$. As a consequence we show that the corresponding braid group representations are Gaussian representations, the images of which are finite groups. This verifies special cases of a conjecture that braid group representations coming from weakly integral braided fusion categories have finite image.

Generalized and quasi-localizations of braid group representations

We develop a theory of localization for braid group representations associated with objects in braided fusion categories and, more generally, to Yang-Baxter operators in monoidal categories. The essential problem is to determine when a family of braid representations can be uniformly modelled upon a tensor power of a fixed vector space in such a way that the braid group generators act locally. Although related to the notion of (quasi-)fiber functors for fusion categories, remarkably, such localizations can exist for representations associated with objects of non-integral dimension. We conjecture that such localizations exist precisely when the object in question has dimension the square-root of an integer and prove several key special cases of the conjecture.

On the classification of non-self-dual modular categories

We develop a symbolic computational approach to classifying low-rank modular categories. We use this technique to classify pseudo-unitary modular categories of rank at most 5 that are non-self-dual, i.e. those for which some object is not isomorphic to its dual object.