Quantum statistics and spacetime surgery

Abstract

© 2020 The Author(s) It is known that quantum statistics of quasiparticles in 2+1 spacetime dimensions beget anyons, beyond the familiar statistics of bosons and fermions, while Verlinde formula dictates the consistent anyon statistics. In 3+1 dimensions, although quasiparticles cannot be anyonic, extended quasi-excitations like strings can have anyonic string statistics. In this work, we first introduce the fusion and braiding data of particle and string excitations creatable from the operators of (world-) lines/sheets, and all are well-defined in gapped states of matter with intrinsic topological orders. We then apply the geometric-topology surgery theory to derive a set of quantum surgery formulas analogous to Verlinde's constraining the fusion and braiding quantum statistics of anyonic particle and anyonic string excitations in 2+1 and 3+1 dimensions, essential for the theory of bulk topological orders and potentially correlated to bootstrap boundary physics.