Inner automorphisms of presheaves of groups (Q6159708)

\textit{P. E. Schupp} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 101, 226--228 (1987; Zbl 0627.20018)] and \textit{G. M. Bergman} [Publ. Mat., Barc. 56, No. 1, 91--126 (2012; Zbl 1254.16032)] have shown that the inner automorphisms of groups are to be characterized genuinely \textit{categorically} as those group autormorphisms that can be coherently extended along any outgoing homomorphism. One is thus motivated to define a notion of \textit{(categorical) inner automorphism} in an arbitrary category, as an automorphism that can be coherently extended along any outgoing morphism, and the theory of such automorphisms forms part of the theory of \textit{covariant isotropy}. The author and his collaborators [\textit{P. Hofstra} et al., Electron. Notes Theor. Comput. Sci. 341, 201--217 (2018; Zbl 1528.03255); LIPIcs -- Leibniz Int. Proc. Inform. 195, Article 26, 17 p. (2021; Zbl 07700631)] investigated the covariant isotropy group of the category \(\mathbb{T}\mathsf{mod}\) of models of any finitary quasi-equational theory \(\mathbb{T}\) in the sense of [\textit{E. Palmgren} and \textit{S. J. Vickers}, Ann. Pure Appl. Logic 145, No. 3, 314--353 (2007; Zbl 1109.03022)], where it was shown that the covariant isotropy group of a model \(M\) of a finitary quasi-equational theory \(\mathbb{T}\) can logically or syntactically be described in terms of the sort-indexed families in \(\prod_C M(\chi_{C})\) that are substitutionally invertible and commute generically with the operations of \(\mathbb{T}\) with \(M(\chi _{C})\) the \(\mathbb{T}\)-model obtained from \(M\) by freely adjoining a new element \(\chi_{C}\) of sort \(C\). Using this logical or syntactical characterization of the covariant isotropy group of \(\mathbb{T}\mathsf{mod}\), the authors provided explicit characterizations of the (extended) inner automorphisms in many prominent categories of mathematical interest. In particular, in [\textit{P. Hofstra} et al., LIPIcs -- Leibniz Int. Proc. Inform. 195, Article 26, 17 p. (2021; Zbl 07700631), 5.2], the authors also proved an explicit characterization of the covariant isotropy group of any presheaf category \(\mathsf{Set}^{\mathcal{J}}\) on a small category \(\mathcal{J}\), showing that it is the constant functor \[ \mathsf{Set}^{\mathcal{J}}\rightarrow\mathsf{Group} \] \ with value \(\mathsf{Aut}(\mathsf{Id}_{\mathcal{J}})\), the group of natural automorphisms of the identity functor on \(\mathcal{J}\). This paper aims to extend the characterization of covariant isotropy for presheaf categories \(\mathsf{Set}^{\mathcal{J}}\) to categories of the form \(\mathbb{T}\mathsf{mod}^{\mathcal{J}}\) for arbitrary quasi-equational theories \(\mathbb{T}\). In other words, the (extended) inner automorphisms in such functor categories are explicitly characterized, and it turns out that the (extended) inner automorphisms of a functor \[ F:\mathcal{J}\rightarrow\mathbb{T}\mathsf{mod} \] can be described in terms of the automorphism group \(\mathsf{Aut}(\mathsf{Id}_{\mathcal{J}})\) and the (extended) inner automorphisms of the component \(\mathbb{T}\)-models \(F(i)\in\mathbb{T} \mathsf{mod}\) (for \(i\in\mathsf{ob\,}\mathcal{J}\)). From this general characterization, an explicit characterization of the (extended) inner automorphisms in any category \(\mathsf{Group}^{\mathcal{J}}\) of presheaves of groups is obtained.