  We analyze topological boundary conditions and topological surface defects in
three-dimensional topological field theories of Reshetikhin-Turaev type based
on arbitrary modular tensor categories. Boundary conditions are described by
central functors that lift to trivializations in the Witt group of modular
tensor categories. The bicategory of boundary conditions can be described
through the bicategory of module categories over any such trivialization. A
similar description is obtained for topological surface defects. Using string
diagrams for bicategories we also establish a precise relation between special
symmetric Frobenius algebras and Wilson lines involving special defects. We
compare our results with previous work of Kapustin-Saulina and of Kitaev-Kong
on boundary conditions and surface defects in abelian Chern-Simons theories and
in Turaev-Viro type TFTs, respectively.

High Energy Physics - Theory;Algebraic Topology;Category Theory