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Automorphisms of a category

Last updated January 27, 2022

Consider two categories $C$ and $D$. Let $F:C\to D$ be a functor.

Proposition. $F$ induces a group homomorphism between the automorphism groups of $C$ and $D$.

Proof. It suffices to show that invertible morphisms are mapped to invertible morphisms. Just consider the pasting diagram which follows from the definition of a functor: $$ \begin{array} zC & \overset{F}{\rightarrow} & D \
\llap{{}^\phi}{\downarrow} & & \rlap{\ \ {}^{F(\phi)}}{\downarrow} \
C & \overset{F}{\rightarrow} & D \
\llap{{}^{\phi^{-1}}}{\downarrow} & & \rlap{\ \ {}^{F(\phi^{-1})}}{\downarrow} \
C & \overset{F}{\rightarrow} & D \end{array} $$


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