Braid gaugings and categorical invariants

We study the categorical notion of braid gauging and obtain its classical Hopf algebraic description. We demonstrate how braid gauging can provide new insights on certain categorical invariants, such as the fusion rules and the higher Frobenius-Schur indicators. The running example for the paper is the category $\mathrm{Rep}(D(G))\cong \mathcal{Z}({\text{Vec}}_G)$, whose braid gaugings are studied in-depth.