Diextensions et panextensions de catégories (Q4458833)

The subject is the right definition of the notions of extension and cohomology of a small category, in relation to the known approaches of \textit{H.-J. Baues} and \textit{G. Wirsching} [J. Pure Appl. Algebra 38, 187--211 (1985; Zbl 0587.18006)] and \textit{G. Hoff} [Math. Scand. 74, 191--207 (1994; Zbl 0823.18007)]. The formalism is inspired by the theory of square-zero extensions of algebras where some equivalence (or, as the author calls it, congruence) classes of short exact sequences of algebras are in bijection to cohomology classes, the cocycles being obtained from sections of the epimorphism. Recall that a short exact sequence \({\mathcal K}\to {\mathcal H}\to {\mathcal C}\) of small categories consists of a faithful functor \(i:{\mathcal K}\to{\mathcal H}\) and a quotient functor \(p:{\mathcal H}\to {\mathcal C}\) (i.e., \(p\) is surjective on morphisms and bijective on objects). Both functors are bijective on objects, so that identifications are only carried out on the sets of morphisms. Such a short sequence is called an extension if \[ p(h)= p(h')\leftrightarrow \exists ! k\in {\mathcal K}_1:h'=i(k)h, \] where we denoted by \({\mathcal K}_1\) the set of morphisms. Another way to express exactness of the short sequence is to demand that \({\mathcal K}\) acts faithfully on \({\mathcal H}\) by \((k,h)\mapsto k[h]\) such that \[ p(h)= p(h')\leftrightarrow \exists ! k\in {\mathcal K}_1: k[h]=h'. \] This is the notion of diextension. The action of \({\mathcal K}\) on \({\mathcal H}\) is given by a group \({\mathcal K}_{A,B}\) associated to each couple \((A,B)\in{\mathcal C}_0\times{\mathcal C}_0\) of objects of \({\mathcal C}\). In the third section, the author carries out the above mentioned program, namely, he associates to a diextension some kind of cocycle using a section and shows its relation to congruence classes of diextensions. In the fourth section, the special case of a diextension given by a group-valued functor \(M:{\mathcal C}\times{\mathcal C}^{\text{op}}\to {\mathcal G}r\) is further explored, and it is shown that this situation leads naturally to a commutativity constraint, i.e., bivariant coefficients. It is in this context that a cohomology theory can be defined such that the congruence classes of diextensions correspond bijectively to cohomology classes. The author therefore obtains an extension interpretation of Baues-Wirsching cohomology. The last two sections introduce \textit{panextensions}, the only change with respect to diextensions being that a group \({\mathcal K}_f\) is associated to a morphism \(f\in {\mathcal C}_1\) instead of associating it to a pair of objects \((A,B)\). \({\mathcal K}_f\) acts then on \(p^{-1}(f)\), instead of acting on \({\mathcal H}(A,B)\). This notion is more general then that of a diextension and englobes Baues-Wirsching's linear extensions. The theory can be pushed through on this level and the author gets once more a bijection between congruence and cohomology classes, reproving thus a theorem of Baues and Wirsching from a different point of view.