Topological Field Theories and the Algebraic Structures of the Two-Sphere

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Main Author: Li, Chris
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Li, Chris
author_facet Li, Chris
contents We give two presentations for bordisms of $S^2$ in the 3-dimensional oriented bordism category $\operatorname{Cob}(3) $, encoding the algebraic structures on $S^2$. After passing through topological field theories, we define two kinds of monoids which we call P-monoids and L-monoids. In addition to both being commutative Frobenius monoids, P-monoids are equipped with a class of endomorphisms while L-monoids are equipped with a class of unit morphisms, all of which are labelled by closed oriented irreducible prime 3-manifolds. They turn out to be equivalent. The new prime structures satisfy some countable relations with the commutative Frobenius structure, the most notable of which we call "legs relations." We then restrict to the setting of algebras and show that the legs relations place strong constraints on the new prime endomorphisms which forces them to act by multiplications by prime units, rendering the additional prime structures remarkably simple. We also propose an $\infty$-operad which encodes these prime structures and contains the $\infty$-little 3-cube operad as a sub-operad.% We briefly discuss the relations between P/L-algebras and J-algebras which classify 3-dimensional TFTs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_20846
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Topological Field Theories and the Algebraic Structures of the Two-Sphere
Li, Chris
Algebraic Topology
Mathematical Physics
Geometric Topology
Quantum Algebra
We give two presentations for bordisms of $S^2$ in the 3-dimensional oriented bordism category $\operatorname{Cob}(3) $, encoding the algebraic structures on $S^2$. After passing through topological field theories, we define two kinds of monoids which we call P-monoids and L-monoids. In addition to both being commutative Frobenius monoids, P-monoids are equipped with a class of endomorphisms while L-monoids are equipped with a class of unit morphisms, all of which are labelled by closed oriented irreducible prime 3-manifolds. They turn out to be equivalent. The new prime structures satisfy some countable relations with the commutative Frobenius structure, the most notable of which we call "legs relations." We then restrict to the setting of algebras and show that the legs relations place strong constraints on the new prime endomorphisms which forces them to act by multiplications by prime units, rendering the additional prime structures remarkably simple. We also propose an $\infty$-operad which encodes these prime structures and contains the $\infty$-little 3-cube operad as a sub-operad.% We briefly discuss the relations between P/L-algebras and J-algebras which classify 3-dimensional TFTs.
title Topological Field Theories and the Algebraic Structures of the Two-Sphere
topic Algebraic Topology
Mathematical Physics
Geometric Topology
Quantum Algebra
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.20846