Quon language is a 3D picture language that we can apply to simulate mathematical concepts. We introduce the surface algebras as an extension of the notion of planar algebras to higher genus surface. We prove that there is a unique one-parameter extension. The 2D defects on the surfaces are quons, and surface tangles are transformations. We use quon language to simulate graphic states that appear in quantum information, and to simulate interesting quantities in modular tensor categories. This simulation relates the pictorial Fourier duality of surface tangles and the algebraic Fourier duality induced by the S matrix of the modular tensor category. The pictorial Fourier duality also coincides with the graphic duality on the sphere. For each pair of dual graphs, we obtain an algebraic identity related to the S matrix. These identities include well-known ones, such as the Verlinde formula; partially known ones, such as the 6j-symbol self-duality; and completely new ones.

We construct two non-semisimple braided ribbon tensor categories of modules for each singlet vertex operator algebra M(p), p≥2. The first category consists of all finite-length M(p)-modules with atypical composition factors, while the second is the subcategory of modules that induce to local modules for the triplet vertex operator algebra W(p). We show that every irreducible module has a projective cover in the second of these categories, although not in the first, and we compute all fusion products involving atypical irreducible modules and their projective covers.

Let O_25 be the vertex algebraic braided tensor category of finite-length modules for the Virasoro Lie algebra at central charge 25 whose composition factors are the irreducible quotients of reducible Verma modules. We show that O_25 is rigid and that its simple objects generate a semisimple tensor subcategory that is braided tensor equivalent to an abelian 3-cocycle twist of the category of finite-dimensional sl_2-modules. We also show that this sl_2-type subcategory is braid-reversed tensor equivalent to a similar category for the Virasoro algebra at central charge 1. As an application, we construct a simple conformal vertex algebra which contains the Virasoro vertex operator algebra of central charge 25 as a PSL_2(C)-orbifold. We also use our results to study Arakawa's chiral universal centralizer algebra of SL_2 at level -1, showing that it has a symmetric tensor category of representations equivalent to Rep PSL_2(C). This algebra is an extension of the tensor product of Virasoro vertex operator algebras of central charges 1 and 25, analogous to the modified regular representations of the Virasoro algebra constructed earlier for generic central charges by I. Frenkel-Styrkas and I. Frenkel-M. Zhu.

Suppose V^G is the fixed-point vertex operator subalgebra of a compact group G acting on a simple abelian intertwining algebra V. We show that if all irreducible V^G-modules contained in V live in some braided tensor category of V^G-modules, then they generate a tensor subcategory equivalent to the category Rep G of finite-dimensional representations of G, with associativity and braiding isomorphisms modified by the abelian 3-cocycle defining the abelian intertwining algebra structure on V. Additionally, we show that if the fusion rules for the irreducible V^G-modules contained in V agree with the dimensions of spaces of intertwiners among G-modules, then the irreducibles contained in V already generate a braided tensor category of V^G-modules. These results do not require rigidity on any tensor category of V^G-modules and thus apply to many examples where braided tensor category structure is known to exist but rigidity is not known; for example they apply when V^G is C_2-cofinite but not necessarily rational. When V^G is both C_2-cofinite and rational and V is a vertex operator algebra, we use the equivalence between Rep G and the corresponding subcategory of V^G-modules to show that V is also rational. As another application, we show that a certain category of modules for the Virasoro algebra at central charge 1 admits a braided tensor category structure equivalent to Rep SU(2), up to modification by an abelian 3-cocycle.

Bisch and Jones proposed the classification of planar algebras by simple generators and relations. They investigated with the second author the classification of planar algebras generated by 2-boxes. In this paper, we classify singly-generated Thurston-relation planar algebras, defined as subfactor planar algebras generated by a 3-box satisfying a relation proposed by Dylan Thurston. Our main result shows that such subfactor planar algebras are either the E6 subfactor planar algebras or belong to a two-parameter family of planar algebras arising from the representations of type A quantum groups. We introduce a new method for determining positivity of the Markov trace of planar algebras in this family.