Group Objects and Internal Categories

Abstract

Algebraic structures such as monoids, groups, and categories can be formulated within a category using commutative diagrams. In many common categories these reduce to familiar cases. In particular, group objects in Grp are abelian groups, while internal categories in Grp are equivalent both to group objects in Cat and to crossed modules of groups. In this exposition we give an elementary introduction to some of the key concepts in this area.