Fundamental group functors in descent-exact homological categories (Q520360)

The author introduces higher fundamental groups within the context of descent-exact homological categories, i.e., a regular pointed protomodular category in which every regular epimorphism is an effective descent morphism. The \(n\)-th-fundamental group functor \(\pi_n^{\Gamma, {\mathcal P}}(-)\), with respect to the Galois structure \(\Gamma\) and the class of morphism \(\mathcal P\), is defined as the pointwise right Kan extension of \(\mathrm{Dom}^{n-1}(\mathrm{Gal}_{\Gamma_{n-1}}( I_n(-), 0))\) along the functor \(\mathrm{Cod}^n : \mathrm{Ext}^n_{\mathcal P} ({\mathcal C}_{\mathcal P} )\to {\mathcal C}_{\mathcal P}\), where \(\mathrm{Gal}_{\Gamma_{n-1}}\) is the Galois group of the Galois structure \(\Gamma_{n-1}\), \({\mathcal C}_{\mathcal P}\) is a full subcategory of \(\mathcal C \) closed under pullbacks of morphism in \(\mathcal P\), \(\mathrm{Ext}^n_{\mathcal P} ({\mathcal C}_{\mathcal P} )\) is the category of \(n\)-fold \(\mathcal P\)-extension in \({\mathcal C}_{\mathcal P}\) and \(I_n\), \(\mathrm{Dom}^n\) and \(\mathrm{Cod}^n\) are the iterated versions of the reflection, domain and codomain functors respectively. The main result is the existence of these higher fundamental groups. Moreover, a higher Hopf formula is obtained for them. This formula extends the case \(n=1\) given in [\textit{M. Duckerts} et al., J. Pure Appl. Algebra 216, No. 8--9, 1837--1851 (2012; Zbl 1257.18012)]. The last section is devoted to examples. Groups with coefficients in torsion free abelian groups, rings (not necessarely unitary) with coefficients in commutative rings without nilpotent elements, topological groups with coefficient in Hausdorff abelian topological groups and torsion theories are studied.