Lie algebras in symmetric monoidal categories

Abstract

We study algebras defined by identities in symmetric monoidal categories. Our focus is on Lie algebras. Besides usual Lie algebras, there are examples appearing in the study of knot invariants and Rozansky-Witten invariants. Our main result is a proof of Westbury's conjecture for K3-surface: there exists a Lie algebra homomorphism from Vogel's universal simple Lie algebra to the Lie algebra describing the Rozansky-Witten invariants of a K3-surface. Most of the paper involves setting up a proper language to discuss the problem and we formulate nine open questions as we proceed.