Endomorphisms and automorphisms of locally covariant quantum field theories

In the framework of locally covariant quantum field theory, a theory is described as a functor from a category of spacetimes to a category of *-algebras. It is proposed that the global gauge group of such a theory can be identified as the group of automorphisms of the defining functor. Consequently, multiplets of fields may be identified at the functorial level. It is shown that locally covariant theories that obey standard assumptions in Minkowski space, including energy compactness, have no proper endomorphisms (i.e., all endomorphisms are automorphisms) and have a compact automorphism group. Further, it is shown how the endomorphisms and automorphisms of a locally covariant theory may, in principle, be classified in any single spacetime. As an example, the endomorphisms and automorphisms of a system of finitely many free scalar fields are completely classified.Comment: v2 45pp, expanded to include additional results; presentation improved and an error corrected. To appear in Rev Math Phy

On the residual finiteness of outer automorphisms of relatively hyperbolic groups

We show that every virtually torsion-free subgroup of the outer automorphism group of a conjugacy separable relatively hyperbolic group is residually finite. As a direct consequence, we obtain that the outer automorphism group of a limit group is residually finite.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure. Section 3 is replaced by Theorem 1.3. More detailed arguments. Added new references. To appear in Journal of Pure and Applied Algebr