Computing 3-dimensional groups: crossed squares and \(\mathrm{cat}^2\)-groups (Q2156370)

From the point of view of homotopy theory, groups model connected homotopy 1-types, whilst by a classical result of Mac Lane and Whitehead connected homotopy 2-types are modelled by crossed modules. These correspond to 2-groups, i.e. to internal categories in the category of groups. A convenient equivalent way of describing them is as cat\(^1\)-groups in the sense of Loday. A cat\(^1\)-group structure on a group, \(G\), in the notation used in this paper, consists of two projections \(t\) (the `tail') and \(h\) (the head), such that \(th=h\), \(ht=t\) and \([\ker\,t,\ker \,h]\) is trivial. (There is a brief exploration of this structure included in Section 2 of the paper.) To model connected homotopy 3-types, there are several equivalent types of algebraic model such as crossed squares, 2-crossed modules, cat\(^2\)-groups, \ldots\,. This paper concentrates on cat\(^2\)-groups and crossed squares as introduced by \textit{J.-L. Loday} [J. Pure Appl. Algebra 24, 179--202 (1982; Zbl 0491.55004)]. A cat\(^2\)-group is a group with two cat\(^1\)-group structures on it which are independent of each other. (The algebraic background and the link with crossed squares is well described in this paper in Section 2.) These models can be considered as higher dimensional analogues of groups. This paper is part of a general programme of computational higher dimensional group theory. An initial part was considered by \textit{M. Alp} and \textit{C. D. Wensley} [Int. J. Algebra Comput. 10, No. 4, 407--424 (2000; Zbl 1006.18002)] and also in the \textsf{GAP} package \textsf{XMod} (2020). Related results are given in the manual for the GAP package, HAP, [\textit{G. J. Ellis}, Homological Algebra Programming, (manual for the \textsf{HAP} package for \textsf{GAP}, version 1.19) (2019)] which also computes with cat\(^1\)-groups. The aim of this paper is to look at crossed squares and cat\(^2\)-groups in the same way, giving some of the computational details in Section 3 and then to illustrate the results from the package via a table of all isomorphism classes of cat\(^2\)-group structures on groups of order at most 30. (There are 1007 such structures on the 92 groups of order at most 30.) The paper also gives general formulae for specific classes of cat\(^2\)-groups, such as those whose underlying group is cyclic.