The Tannakian radical and the mantle of a braided fusion category

Abstract

We define the Tannakian radical of a braided fusion category $\mathcal{C}$ as the intersection of its maximal Tannakian subcategories. The localization of $\mathcal{C}$ corresponding to the Tannakian radical, termed the mantle of $\mathcal{C}$, admits a canonical central extension that serves as a complete invariant of $\mathcal{C}$. The mantle has a trivial Tannakian radical, and we refer to braided fusion categories with this property as reductive. We investigate the properties and structure of reductive categories and prove several classification results.