Semisimple four-dimensional topological field theories cannot detect exotic smooth structure

Abstract

We prove that semisimple four-dimensional oriented topological field theories lead to stable diffeomorphism invariants and can therefore not distinguish homeomorphic closed oriented smooth four-manifolds and homotopy equivalent simply connected closed oriented smooth four-manifolds. We show that all currently known four-dimensional field theories are semisimple, including unitary field theories, and once-extended field theories which assign algebras or linear categories to 2-manifolds. As an application, we compute the value of a semisimple field theory on a simply connected closed oriented 4-manifold in terms of its Euler characteristic and signature. Moreover, we show that a semisimple four-dimensional field theory is invariant under (Formula presented.) -stable diffeomorphisms if and only if the Gluck twist acts trivially. This may be interpreted as the absence of fermions amongst the ‘point particles’ of the field theory. Such fermion-free field theories cannot distinguish homotopy equivalent 4-manifolds. Throughout, we illustrate our results with the Crane–Yetter–Kauffman field theory associated to a ribbon fusion category, settling in the negative the question of whether it is sensitive to smooth structure. As a purely algebraic corollary of our results applied to this field theory, we show that a ribbon fusion category contains a fermionic object if and only if its Gauss sums vanish.