Matrix factorizations, Reality and Kn\"orrer periodicity

Abstract

Motivated by periodicity theorems for Real $K$-theory and Grothendieck--Witt theory and, separately, work of Hori-Walcher on the physics of Landau-Ginzburg orientifolds, we introduce and study categories of Real matrix factorizations. Our main results are generalizations of Kn\"{o}rrer periodicity to categories of Real matrix factorizations. These generalizations are structurally similar to $(1,1)$-periodicity for $KR$-theory and $4$-periodicity for Grothendieck-Witt theory. We use techniques from Real categorical representation theory which allow us to incorporate into our main results equivariance for a finite group and discrete torsion twists.