On Semisimplification of Tensor Categories

We develop the theory of semisimplifications of tensor categories defined by Barrett and Westbury. In particular, we compute the semisimplification of the category of representations of a finite group in characteristic p in terms of representations of the normalizer of its Sylow p-subgroup. This allows us to compute the semisimplification of the representation category of the symmetric group S_n+p in characteristic p, where 0 ≤ n ≤ p − 1, and of the Deligne category \( \underline { \mathop {\mathrm {Rep}} \nolimits }^{\mathrm {ab}}S_t\), where t ∈ℕ. We also compute the semisimplification of the category of representations of the Kac-De Concini quantum group of the Borel subalgebra of \(\mathfrak {sl}_2\). We also study tensor functors between Verlinde categories of semisimple algebraic groups arising from the semisimplification construction and objects of finite type in categories of modular representations of finite groups (i.e., objects generating a fusion category in the semisimplification). Finally, we determine the semisimplifications of the tilting categories of GL(n), SL(n), and PGL(n) in characteristic 2. In the appendix, we classify categorifications of the Grothendieck ring of representations of SO(3) and its truncations.