Automorphisms of categories of free algebras of some varieties (Q858706)

For a variety \(V\) of universal algebras, let \(\Theta (V)\) denote the associated category, and for an infinite set \(X_{0},\) let \(\Theta ^{0}(V)\) denote the full subcategory of \(\Theta (V)\) defined by all free algebras from \(V\) over finite subsets of the set \(X_{0}.\) The main problem is to describe all automorphisms of the category \(\Theta ^{0}(V);\) this problem has been solved in many cases (as for the varieties of all groups, all semigroups, all inverse semigroups, all Lie algebras, semimodules and modules, etc.). In all these cases, the proofs are based on some reduction to the group AutEnd\((A),\) where \(A\) is a finitely generated free algebra from the variety \(V.\) Once one can describe the group AutEnd\((A)\), the Reduction Theorem [\textit{G. Mashevitzky, B. Plotkin}, and \textit{E. Plotkin}, Electron. Res. Announc. Am. Math. Soc. 8, 1--10 (2002; Zbl 1016.08007)] allows one to describe the automorphisms of the category \( \Theta ^{0}(V).\) In the present paper the authors suggest another method for describing automorphisms of categories of free \(V\)-algebras. All automorphisms of such categories are found in two cases: \((1)\) \(V\) is the variety of all associative \(K\)-algebras over an infinite field \(K;\) (2) \(V\) is the variety of all representations of groups in unital \(R\)-modules over a commutative associative ring \(R\) with unit. They prove that all these automorphisms are close to inner automorphisms. This method extends some ideals from another paper of the authors [Int. J. Algebra Comput. (to appear), arXiv: math. CT/0411408, 2004].