Two characterisations of groups amongst monoids (Q1678265)

The article addresses a question of D. Bourn, about a categorical-algebraic characterisation of groups amongst monoids and of rings amongst semirings. In particular, the authors want to find a characterisation of non-abelian groups inside the category of monoids in categorical-algebraic terms. Therefore, they develop a local approach to certain important conditions occurring in categorical algebra. They introduce the notions of unital and strongly unital objects, subtractive objects, Mal'tsev objects and protomodular objects, and they show that a Mal'tsev object in the category of monoids is a group. The main result in the article asserts that a monoid is a group if and only if it is a protomodular object, and if and only if it is a Mal'tsev object. Similarly, the authors characterise rings in the category of seminrings.