A graph planar algebra approach to near-group categories

Abstract: In this note we investigate the construction of near-group fusion categories via building explicit representations of them in certain graph planar algebras. To achieve this we first give a presentation for a cyclic near-group fusion category. Our presentation is ``subfactor-centric'' in the sense that we use a Q-system as one of our generating morphisms. Using this presentation we then obtain a rational system of equations, a solution of which corresponds to a faithful embedding of a near-group fusion category into a certain 2-coloured graph planar algebra. We end the note by providing solutions to these systems of equations for the odd cyclic groups up to order 13. This gives an alternate construction to the Evans-Gannon construction of the corresponding near-group fusion categories.