In 1941 H Kramers and G Wannier discovered a special symmetry which relates low-temperature and high-temperature phases in the planar Ising model. The corresponding transformation, the Kramers–Wannier transform, is a special non-local substitution in the partition function. The existence of such transformations is a general property of lattice spin systems. Generalization of the KW transform to spin systems with non-Abelian symmetry is essential for many problems in statistical physics and field theory. This problem is very difficult and cannot be carried out by classical methods (like Fourier transform in the commutative case). We present new results which solve this problem for finite non-Abelian groups.
We relate two classical dualities in low-dimensional quantum field theory: Kramers-Wannier duality of the Ising and related lattice models in
2 dimensions, with electromagnetic duality for finite gauge theories in
3 dimensions. The relation is mediated by the notion of boundary field theory: Ising models are boundary theories for pure gauge theory in one dimension higher. Thus the Ising order/disorder operators are endpoints of Wilson/'t Hooft defects of gauge theory. Symmetry breaking on low-energy states reflects the multiplicity of topological boundary states. In the process we describe lattice theories as (extended) topological field theories with boundaries and domain walls. This allows us to generalize the duality to non-abelian groups; finite, semi-simple Hopf algebras; and, in a different direction, to finite homotopy theories in arbitrary dimension.
The Kramers-Wannier transformation of the 1+1d transverse-field Ising model exchanges the paramagnetic and ferromagnetic phases and, at criticality, manifests as a non-invertible symmetry. Extending such self-duality symmetries beyond gauging of abelian groups in tensor-product Hilbert spaces has, however, remained challenging. In this work, we construct a generalized 1+1d Ising model based on a finite-dimensional semisimple Hopf algebra
H that enjoys an anomaly-free non-invertible symmetry
Rep(H). We provide an intuitive diagrammatic formulation of both the Hamiltonian and the symmetry operators using a non-(co)commutative generalization of ZX-calculus built from Hopf-algebraic data. When
H is self-dual, we further construct a generalized Kramers-Wannier duality operator that exchanges the paramagnetic and ferromagnetic phases and becomes a non-invertible symmetry at the self-dual point. This enlarged symmetry mixes with lattice translation and, in the infrared, flows to a weakly integral fusion category given by a
Z2 extension of
Rep(H). Specializing to the Kac-Paljutkin algebra
H8, the smallest self-dual Hopf algebra beyond abelian group algebras, we numerically study the phase diagram and identify four of the six
Rep(H8)-symmetric gapped phases, separated by Ising critical lines and meeting at a multicritical point. We also realize all six
Rep(H8)-symmetric gapped phases on the lattice via the
H-comodule algebra formalism, in agreement with the module-category classification of
Rep(H8). Our results provide a unified Hopf-algebraic framework for non-invertible symmetries, dualities, and the tensor product lattice models that realize them.