Inner autoequivalences in general and those of monoidal categories in particular

Abstract

We develop a general theory of (extended) inner autoequivalences of objects of any 2-category, generalizing the theory of isotropy groups to the 2-categorical setting. We show how dense subcategories let one compute isotropy in the presence of binary coproducts, unifying various known one-dimensional results and providing tractable computational tools in the two-dimensional setting. In particular, we show that the isotropy 2-group of a monoidal category coincides with its Picard 2-group, i.e., the 2-group on its weakly invertible objects.