Restricted (2+1)-TQFTs supported by thickened and solid tori

Abstract

A faithful $(1+1)$ TQFT has recently been constructed, but the existence of a faithful $(2+1)$ TQFT remains an open question, that subsumes the hard problem of linearity of mapping class groups of surfaces. To circumvent the latter problem we construct a subcategory of the category of 3-cobordisms, containing disjoint unions of tori and simplest cobordisms between them. On this we define TQFTs that are able to distinguish pairs of torus bundles and lens spaces, previously shown not to be distinguishable by quantum invariants.