Monoidal categorification of genus zero skein algebras

Abstract: We prove a conjecture of the first and third named authors relating the Kauffman bracket skein algebra of a genus zero surface with boundary to a quantized $K$-theoretic Coulomb branch. As a consequence, we see that our skein algebra arises as the Grothendieck ring of the bounded derived category of equivariant coherent sheaves on the Braverman-Finkelberg-Nakajima variety of triples with monoidal structure defined by the convolution product. We thus give a monoidal categorification of the skein algebra, partially answering a question posed by D. Thurston.