Ground state degeneracy and module category

Abstract

We develop a systematic method to classify connected \'etale algebras $A$'s in (possibly degenerate) pre-modular category $\mathcal B$. In particular, we find the category of $A$-modules, $\mathcal B_A$, have ranks bounded from above by $\lfloor\text{FPdim}(\mathcal B)\rfloor$. For demonstration, we classify connected \'etale algebras in some $\mathcal B$'s, which appear in physics. Physically, the results constrain (or fix) ground state degeneracies of (certain) $\mathcal B$-symmetric gapped phases. We study massive deformations of rational conformal field theories such as minimal models and Wess-Zumino-Witten models. In most of our examples, the classification suggests the symmetries $\mathcal B$'s are spontaneously broken.