Condensation in topological orders and topological holography

Abstract

Condensation of topological defects is the foundation of the modern theory of bulk-boundary correspondence, also known as topological holography. In this talk, I discuss string condensation in 3+1D topological orders, which plays a role analogous to anyon condensation in 2+1D topological orders. I will demonstrate through examples how they correspond to 2+1D symmetry enrichd phases, including both gapped and gapless phases. Then I give a detailed analysis of string condensaiton in 3+1D discrete gauge theories. I compute the outcome of the condensation, namely the category of excitations surviving the condensation. The results suggest that a complete topological holography for 2+1D phases can only be established by taking into account all possible ways of condensing strings in the bulk 3+1D topological order.