Frobenius Algebras, 2D TQFTs and Monoidal Categories -- Alex Moll

This lecture will be devoted to understanding how the category of 2-dimensional topological quantum field theories is equivalent to the category of commutative Frobenius algebras. After using this result to generate numerical invariants of closed orientable 2-manifolds, we will motivate the search for the free monoidal category on a Frobenius object.