Some universal properties of Levin-Wen models

Abstract

We review the key steps of the construction of Levin-Wen type of models on lattices with boundaries and defects of codimension 1,2,3 in a joint work with Alexei Kitaev. We emphasize some universal properties, such as boundary-bulk duality and duality-defect correspondence, shared by all these models. New results include a detailed analysis of the local properties of a boundary excitation and a conjecture on the functoriality of the monoidal center.

12 pages, a contribution to the proceeding of International Congress of Mathematical Physics, 2012, comments are welcome