On the degeneracy of SU(3)_k topological phases

The ground state degeneracy of an $SU(N)_k$ topological phase with $n$ quasiparticle excitations is relevant quantity for quantum computation, condensed matter physics, and knot theory. It is an open question to find a closed formula for this degeneracy for any $N > 2$. Here we present the problem in an explicit combinatorial way and analyze the case N=3. While not finding a complete closed-form solution, we obtain generating functions and solve some special cases.