Topological quantum field theory

A topological quantum field theory (or topological field theory or TQFT) is a quantum field theory which computes topological invariants. A topological quantum field theory (or topological field theory or TQFT) is a quantum field theory which computes topological invariants. Although TQFTs were invented by physicists, they are also of mathematical interest, being related to, among other things, knot theory and the theory of four-manifolds in algebraic topology, and to the theory of moduli spaces in algebraic geometry. Donaldson, Jones, Witten, and Kontsevich have all won Fields Medals for mathematical work related to topological field theory. In condensed matter physics, topological quantum field theories are the low-energy effective theories of topologically ordered states, such as fractional quantum Hall states, string-net condensed states, and other strongly correlated quantum liquid states. In dynamics, all continuous time dynamical systems, with and without noise, are Witten-type TQFTs and the phenomenon of the spontaneous breakdown of the corresponding topological supersymmetry encompasses such well-established concepts as chaos, turbulence, 1/f and crackling noises, self-organized criticality etc. In a topological field theory, the correlation functions do not depend on the metric of spacetime. This means that the theory is not sensitive to changes in the shape of spacetime; if the spacetime warps or contracts, the correlation functions do not change. Consequently, they are topological invariants. Topological field theories are not very interesting on the flat Minkowski spacetime used in particle physics. Minkowski space can be contracted to a point, so a TQFT on Minkowski space computes only trivial topological invariants. Consequently, TQFTs are usually studied on curved spacetimes, such as, for example, Riemann surfaces. Most of the known topological field theories are defined on spacetimes of dimension less than five. It seems that a few higher-dimensional theories exist, but they are not very well understood. Quantum gravity is believed to be background-independent (in some suitable sense), and TQFTs provide examples of background independent quantum field theories. This has prompted ongoing theoretical investigation of this class of models. (Caveat: It is often said that TQFTs have only finitely many degrees of freedom. This is not a fundamental property. It happens to be true in most of the examples that physicists and mathematicians study, but it is not necessary. A topological sigma model with target infinite-dimensional projective space, if such a thing could be defined, would have countably infinitely many degrees of freedom.) The known topological field theories fall into two general classes: Schwarz-type TQFTs and Witten-type TQFTs. Witten TQFTs are also sometimes referred to as cohomological field theories. See (Schwarz 2000).