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We introduce the condensed fiber product of two $G$-crossed braided fusion categories, generalizing existing constructions in the literature. We show that this product is closely related to the cohomological construction known as zesting. Furthermore, the condensed fiber product defines a monoidal structure on the 2-category of $G$-crossed and braided extensions of braided categories with a fixed transparent symmetric pointed subcategory.

We study the boundaries of the positroid cells which arise from N = 4 super Yang Mills theory. Our main tool is a new diagrammatic object which generalizes the Wilson loop diagrams used to represent interactions in the theory. We prove conditions under which these new generalized Wilson loop diagrams correspond to positroids and give an explicit algorithm to calculate the Grassmann necklace of said positroids. Then we develop a graphical calculus operating directly on noncrossing generalized Wilson loop diagrams. In this paradigm, applying diagrammatic moves to a generalized Wilson loop diagram results in new diagrams that represent boundaries of its associated positroid, without passing through cryptomorphisms. We provide a Python implementation of the graphical calculus and use it to show that the boundaries of positroids associated to ordinary Wilson loop diagram are generated by our diagrammatic moves in certain cases., Comment: 80 pages

Quantum topology provides various frameworks for defining and computing invariants of manifolds. One such framework of substantial interest in both mathematics and physics is the Turaev-Viro-Barrett-Westbury state sum construction, which uses the data of a spherical fusion category to define topological invariants of triangulated 3-manifolds via tensor network contractions. In this work we consider a restricted class of state sum invariants of 3-manifolds derived from Tambara-Yamagami categories. These categories are particularly simple, being entirely specified by three pieces of data: a finite abelian group, a bicharacter of that group, and a sign $\pm 1$. Despite being one of the simplest sources of state sum invariants, the computational complexities of Tambara-Yamagami invariants are yet to be fully understood. We make substantial progress on this problem. Our main result is the existence of a general fixed parameter tractable algorithm for all such topological invariants, where the parameter is the first Betti number of the 3-manifold with $\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}$ coefficients. We also explain that these invariants are sometimes #P-hard to compute (and we expect that this is almost always the case). Contrary to other domains of computational topology, such as graphs on surfaces, very few hard problems in 3-manifold topology are known to admit FPT algorithms with a topological parameter. However, such algorithms are of particular interest as their complexity depends only polynomially on the combinatorial representation of the input, regardless of size or combinatorial width. Additionally, in the case of Betti numbers, the parameter itself is easily computable in polynomial time., Comment: 24 pages, including 3 appendices

For a finite group $G$, a $G$-crossed braided fusion category is $G$-graded fusion category with additional structures, namely a $G$-action and a $G$-braiding. We develop the notion of $G$-crossed braided zesting: an explicit method for constructing new $G$-crossed braided fusion categories from a given one by means of cohomological data associated with the invertible objects in the category and grading group $G$. This is achieved by adapting a similar construction for (braided) fusion categories recently described by the authors. All $G$-crossed braided zestings of a given category $\mathcal{C}$ are $G$-extensions of their trivial component and can be interpreted in terms of the homotopy-based description of Etingof, Nikshych and Ostrik. In particular, we explicitly describe which $G$-extensions correspond to $G$-crossed braided zestings.