Fundamental groupoids for simplicial objects in Mal'tsev categories

Abstract

We show that the category of internal groupoids in an exact Mal'tsev category is reflective, and in fact a Birkhoff subcategory of the category of simplicial objects. We then characterize the central extensions of the corresponding Galois structure, and show that regular epimorphisms admit a relative monotone-light factorization system in the sense of Chikhladze. We also draw some comparison with Kan complexes. By comparing the reflections of simplicial objects and reflexive graphs into groupoids, we exhibit a connection with weighted commutators (as defined by Gran, Janelidze and Ursini).