Speaker
David Evans
Description
Groups can act as symmetries of physical systems and on their mathematical models as in conformal field theory.
Vaughan's subfactor theory provides a framework for quantum symmetries beyond those arising from groups or their deformations as quantum groups or loop groups. The accepted position was that the Haagerup system, associated with the a subfactor at index $(5+ \sqrt(13))/2$, was exotic and surely could not be constructed from group like symmetries. I discuss work with Terry Gannon that this should be considered as misconception and the more general issue of constructing conformal field theories from subfactors and their associated modular tensor categories.
