In category theory, a branch of mathematics, group objects are certain generalizations of groups that are built on more complicated structures than sets. A typical example of a group object is a topological group, a group whose underlying set is a topological space such that the group operations are continuous.

Definition

Formally, we start with a category C with finite products (i.e. C has a terminal object 1 and any two objects of C have a product). A group object in C is an object G of C together with morphisms such that the following properties (modeled on the group axioms – more precisely, on the definition of a group used in universal algebra) are satisfied Note that this is stated in terms of maps – product and inverse must be maps in the category – and without any reference to underlying "elements" of the group object – categories in general do not have elements of their objects. Another way to state the above is to say G is a group object in a category C if for every object X in C, there is a group structure on the morphisms Hom(X, G) from X to G such that the association of X to Hom(X, G) is a (contravariant) functor from C to the category of groups.

Examples