Fusion categories are algebraic gadgets that have seen many applications in topology and mathematical physics.  In particular, they can be used to encode topological quantum field theories in the sense of Atiyah.  Classical examples of fusion categories include C-Rep(G), the category of finite dimensional complex representations of a finite group G.  Because of their connections to physics, much of the literature on fusion categories has focused on the case where the base field is the complex numbers.  In this talk we will discuss some of the new phenomena that can be found when working over the real numbers, and we will give some examples of new fusion categories recently discovered in https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17843 .

Speaker’s webpage: https://seancs.page