Path partial groups (Q6847481)

The paper studies automorphism groups in the category of partial groups in the sense of Chermak. Given a simple undirected graph \(G\), the authors define the associated path partial group \(P(G)\) as the partial group whose elements are certain cyclically reduced words corresponding to paths in cliques of \(G\), with product given by concatenation followed by reduction and show that\N\[\N\mathrm{Aut}_{\mathrm{Part}}(P(G))\cong \mathrm{Aut}_{\mathrm{Graphs}}(G).\N\]\NThis provides the key link between graph automorphisms and automorphisms of partial groups.\N\NMore generally, for a decorated graph \((G,\mathcal H)\), where a group is attached to each vertex, the paper constructs a partial group \(M(G,\mathcal H)\) and analyzes its automorphism group through the graph structure and the vertex groups. As a consequence, the authors prove that the category \(\mathrm{Part}\) is universal: for every abstract group \(H\) there exist infinitely many pairwise nonisomorphic partial groups \(M\) such that \(\mathrm{Aut}_{\mathrm{Part}}(M)\cong H\).\N\NThe paper also deduces that the category of symmetric simplicial sets is universal. This establishes a general realization result for automorphism groups within the category of partial groups.