Let $\U_q(\fg)$ be the quantum supergroup of $\gl_{m|n}$ or the modified quantum supergroup of $\osp_{m|2n}$ over the field of rational functions in $q$, and let $V_q$ be the natural module for $\U_q(\fg)$. There exists a unique tensor functor, associated with $V_q$, from the category of ribbon graphs to the category of finite dimensional representations of $\U_q(\fg)$, which preserves ribbon category structures. We show that this functor is full in the cases $\fg=\gl_{m|n}$ or $\osp_{2\ell+1|2n}$. For $\fg=\osp_{2\ell|2n}$, we show that the space $\Hom_{\U_q(\fg)}(V_q^{\otimes r}, V_q^{\otimes s})$ is spanned by images of ribbon graphs if $r+s< 2\ell(2n+1)$. The proofs involve an equivalence of module categories for two versions of the quantisation of $\U(\fg)$.

We introduce fusion bialgebras and their duals and systematically study their Fourier analysis. As an application, we discover new efficient analytic obstructions on the unitary categorification of fusion rings. We prove the Hausdorff-Young inequality, uncertainty principles for fusion bialgebras and their duals. We show that the Schur product property, Young's inequality and the sum-set estimate hold for fusion bialgebras, but not always on their duals. If the fusion ring is the Grothendieck ring of a unitary fusion category, then these inequalities hold on the duals. Therefore, these inequalities are analytic obstructions of categorification. We classify simple integral fusion rings of Frobenius type up to rank 8 and of Frobenius-Perron dimension less than 4080. We find 34 ones, 4 of which are group-like and 28 of which can be eliminated by applying the Schur product property on the dual. In general, these inequalities are obstructions to subfactorize fusion bialgebras.

Let O_c be the category of finite-length central-charge-c modules for the Virasoro Lie algebra whose composition factors are irreducible quotients of reducible Verma modules. Recently, it has been shown that O_c admits vertex algebraic tensor category structure for any c∈C. Here, we determine the structure of this tensor category when c=13−6p−6/p for an integer p>1. For such c, we prove that O_c is rigid, and we construct projective covers of irreducible modules in a natural tensor subcategory O_c^0. We then compute all tensor products involving irreducible modules and their projective covers. Using these tensor product formulas, we show that O_c has a semisimplification which, as an abelian category, is the Deligne product of two tensor subcategories that are tensor equivalent to the Kazhdan-Lusztig categories for affine sl_2 at levels −2+p^±1. Next, as a straightforward consequence of the braided tensor category structure on O_c together with the theory of vertex operator algebra extensions, we rederive known results for triplet vertex operator algebras W(p), including rigidity, fusion rules, and construction of projective covers. Finally, we prove a recent conjecture of Negron that O_c^0 is braided tensor equivalent to the PSL(2,C)-equivariantization of the category of W(p)-modules.

We give a new type of Schur-Weyl duality for the representations of a family of quantum subgroups and their centralizer algebra. We define and classify singly-generated, Yang-Baxter relation planar algebras. We present the skein theoretic construction of a new parameterized planar algebra. We construct infinitely many new subfactors and unitary fusion categories, and compute their trace formula as a closed-form expression, in terms of Young diagrams.

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.