Frobenius-Schur indicator for categories with duality

Abstract

We introduce the Frobenius-Schur indicator for categories with duality to give a category-theoretical understanding of various generalizations of the Frobenius-Schur theorem, including that for semisimple quasi-Hopf algebras, weak Hopf C*-algebras and association schemes. Our framework also clarifies a mechanism how the `twisted' theory arises from the ordinary case. As a demonstration, we give a twisted Frobenius-Schur theorem for semisimple quasi-Hopf algebras. We also give several applications to the quantum SL_2.