Transformation Double Categories Associated to 2-Group Actions

Abstract

Transformation groupoids associated to group actions capture the interplay between global and local symmetries of structures described in set-theoretic terms. This paper examines the analogous situation for structures described in category-theoretic terms, where symmetry is expressed as the action of a 2-group G (equivalently, a categorical group) on a category C. It describes the construction of a transformation groupoid in diagrammatic terms, and considers this construction internal to Cat, the category of categories. The result is a double category C//G which describes the local symmetries of C. We define this and describe some of its structure, with the adjoint action of G on itself as a guiding example.