Quantum geometric Wigner construction for $D(G)$ and braided racks

Abstract

The quantum double $D(G)=\Bbb C(G)\rtimes \Bbb C G$ of a finite group plays an important role in the Kitaev model for quantum computing, as well as in associated TQFT's, as a kind of Poincaré group. We interpret the known construction of its irreps, which are quasiparticles for the model, in a geometric manner strictly analogous to the Wigner construction for the usual Poincaré group of $\Bbb R^{1,3}$. Irreps are labelled by pairs $(C, π)$, where $C$ is a conjugacy class in the role of a mass-shell, and $π$ is a representation of the isotropy group $C_G$ in the role of spin. The geometric picture entails $D^\vee(G)\to \Bbb C(C_G)\blacktriangleright\!\!\!\!< \Bbb C G$ as a quantum homogeneous bundle where the base is $G/C_G$, and $D^\vee(G)\to \Bbb C(G)$ as another homogeneous bundle where the base is the group algebra $\Bbb C G$ as noncommutative spacetime. Analysis of the latter leads to a duality whereby the differential calculus and solutions of the wave equation on $\Bbb C G$ are governed by irreps and conjugacy classes of $G$ respectively, while the same picture on $\Bbb C(G)$ is governed by the reversed data. Quasiparticles as irreps of $D(G)$ also turn out to classify irreducible bicovariant differential structures $Ω^1_{C, π}$ on $D^\vee(G)$ and these in turn correspond to braided-Lie algebras $\mathcal{L}_{C, π}$ in the braided category of $G$-crossed modules, which we call `braided racks' and study. We show under mild assumptions that $U(\mathcal{L}_{C,π})$ quotients to a braided Hopf algebra $B_{C,π}$ related by transmutation to a coquasitriangular Hopf algebra $H_{C,π}$.