Topology and Field Theories

The four topics
covered in this volume are: Construction of a local conformal field
theory associated to a compact Lie group, a level and a Frobenius
object in the corresponding fusion category; Field theory
interpretation of certain polynomial invariants associated to knots and
links; Homotopy theoretic construction of far-reaching generalizations
of the topological field theories that Dijkgraf and Witten associated
to finite groups; and a discussion of the action of the orthogonal
group   on the full subcategory of an  -category consisting of the fully dualizable objects.

The expository style of the articles enables non-experts to understand the basic ideas of this wide range of important topics.