Intermediate planar algebra revisited

Abstract

In this paper, we explicitly work out the subfactor planar algebra $P^{(N \subset Q)}$ for an intermediate subfactor $N \subset Q \subset M$ of an irreducible subfactor $N \subset M$ of finite index. We do this in terms of the subfactor planar algebra $P^{(N \subset M)}$ by showing that if $T$ is any planar tangle, the associated operator $Z^{(N \subset Q)}_T$ can be read off from $Z^{(N \subset M)}_T$ by a formula involving the so-called {\em biprojection} corresponding to the intermediate subfactor $N \subset Q \subset M$ and a scalar $\alpha(T)$ carefully chosen so as to ensure that the formula defining $Z^{(N \subset Q)}_T$ is multiplicative with respect to composition of tangles. Also, the planar algebra of $Q \subset M$ can be obtained by applying these results to $M \subset M_1$. We also apply our result to the example of a semi-direct product subgroup-subfactor.