Topological Field Theory, Higher Categories, and Their Applications

Abstract

It has been common wisdom among mathematicians that Extended Topological Field Theory in dimensions higher than two is naturally formulated in terms of n-categories with n> 1. Recently the physical meaning of these higher categorical structures has been recognized and concrete examples of Extended TFTs have been constructed. Some of these examples, like the Rozansky-Witten model, are of geometric nature, while others are related to representation theory. I outline two application of higher-dimensional TFTs. One is related to the problem of classifying monoidal deformations of the derived category of coherent sheaves, and the other one is geometric Langlands duality.