Group homomorphism

1 Intuition

a The purpose of dening a group homomorphism is to cre-

ate functions that preserve the algebraic structure. An
aN h(a)
equivalent denition of group homomorphism is: The
function h : G H is a group homomorphism if when-
1 ever a b = c we have h(a) h(b) = h(c). In other words,
1
imh the group H in some sense has a similar algebraic struc-
N = kerh ture as G and the homomorphism h preserves that.

h
G H 2 Types of group homomorphism
Monomorphism A group homomorphism that is
Image of a group homomorphism (h) from G (left) to H (right).
The smaller oval inside H is the image of h. N is the kernel of h
injective (or, one-to-one); i.e., preserves distinct-
and aN is a coset of N. ness.
Epimorphism A group homomorphism that is
In mathematics, given two groups, (G, ) and (H, ), a surjective (or, onto); i.e., reaches every point in the
group homomorphism from (G, ) to (H, ) is a function codomain.
h : G H such that for all u and v in G it holds that
Isomorphism A group homomorphism that is bijective;
i.e., injective and surjective. Its inverse is also a
h(u v) = h(u) h(v) group homomorphism. In this case, the groups G
and H are called isomorphic; they dier only in the
where the group operation on the left hand side of the notation of their elements and are identical for all
equation is that of G and on the right hand side that of H. practical purposes.
From this property, one can deduce that h maps the Endomorphism A homomorphism, h: G G; the do-
identity element eG of G to the identity element eH of main and codomain are the same. Also called an
H, and it also maps inverses to inverses in the sense that endomorphism of G.
Automorphism An endomorphism that is bijective,
( 1
) 1 and hence an isomorphism. The set of all
h u = h(u) .
automorphisms of a group G, with functional com-
Hence one can say that h is compatible with the group position as operation, forms itself a group, the auto-
structure. morphism group of G. It is denoted by Aut(G). As
Older notations for the homomorphism h(x) may be xh, an example, the automorphism group of (Z, +) con-
though this may be confused as an index or a general sub- tains only two elements, the identity transformation
script. A more recent trend is to write group homomor- and multiplication with 1; it is isomorphic to Z/2Z.
phisms on the right of their arguments, omitting brackets,
so that h(x) becomes simply x h. This approach is espe-
cially prevalent in areas of group theory where automata 3 Image and kernel
play a role, since it accords better with the convention that
automata read words from left to right. Main articles: Image (mathematics) and kernel (algebra)
In areas of mathematics where one considers groups en-
dowed with additional structure, a homomorphism some- We dene the kernel of h to be the set of elements in G
times means a map which respects not only the group which are mapped to the identity in H
structure (as above) but also the extra structure. For ex-
ample, a homomorphism of topological groups is often
required to be continuous. ker(h) {u G : h(u) = eH } .

1
2 6 HOMOMORPHISMS OF ABELIAN GROUPS
and the image of h to be
im(h) h(G) {h(u) : u G} .
The kernel and image of a homomorphism can be inter-
preted as measuring how close it is to being an isomor-
phism. The rst isomorphism theorem states that the im-
age of a group homomorphism, h(G) is isomorphic to the
quotient group G/ker h.
The kernel of h is a normal subgroup of G and the image
of h is a subgroup of H:
( )
h g 1 u g = h(g)1 h(u) h(g)
= h(g)1 eH h(g)
= h(g)1 h(g) = eH .
If and only if ker(h) = {eG}, the homomorphism, h, is
a group monomorphism; i.e., h is injective (one-to-one).
Injection directly gives that there is a unique element in
the kernel, and a unique element in the kernel gives in-
jection:
h(g1 ) = h(g2 )
h(g1 ) h(g2 )1 = eH
( )
h g1 g21 = eH , ker(h) = {eG }
g1 g21 = eG If G and H are abelian (i.e., commutative) groups, then
g1 = g2
4 Examples
Consider the cyclic group Z/3Z = {0, 1, 2} and the
group of integers Z with addition. The map h : Z
Z/3Z with h(u) = u mod 3 is a group homomor-
phism. It is surjective and its kernel consists of all
integers which are divisible by 3.
Consider the group
The exponential map yields a group homomorphism
from the group of real numbers R with addition to
the group of non-zero real numbers R* with multi-
plication. The kernel is {0} and the image consists
of the positive real numbers.
The exponential map also yields a group homomor-
phism from the group of complex numbers C with
addition to the group of non-zero complex numbers
C* with multiplication. This map is surjective and
has the kernel {2ki : k Z}, as can be seen from
Eulers formula. Fields like R and C that have homo-
morphisms from their additive group to their multi-
plicative group are thus called exponential elds.
5 The category of groups
If h : G H and k : H K are group homomorphisms,
then so is k h : G K. This shows that the class of
all groups, together with group homomorphisms as mor-
phisms, forms a category.
6 Homomorphisms of abelian
groups
the set Hom(G, H) of all group homomorphisms from
G to H is itself an abelian group: the sum h + k of two
homomorphisms is dened by
(h + k)(u) = h(u) + k(u) for all u in G.
The commutativity of H is needed to prove that h + k is
again a group homomorphism.
The addition of homomorphisms is compatible with the
composition of homomorphisms in the following sense:
if f is in Hom(K, G), h, k are elements of Hom(G, H),
{( ) } and g is in Hom(H, L), then
a b 
G a > 0, b R
0 1 
(h + k) f = (h f) + (k f) and g (h + k) =
For any complex number u the function fu : G C (g h) + (g k).
dened by:

( ) Since the composition is associative, this shows that the

a b set End(G) of all endomorphisms of an abelian group
7 au
0 1 forms a ring, the endomorphism ring of G. For example,
is a group homomorphism. the endomorphism ring of the abelian group consisting of
the direct sum of m copies of Z/nZ is isomorphic to the
Consider multiplicative group of positive real num- ring of m-by-m matrices with entries in Z/nZ. The above
bers (R+ , ) for any complex number u the function compatibility also shows that the category of all abelian
fu : R+ C dened by: groups with group homomorphisms forms a preadditive
u category; the existence of direct sums and well-behaved
fu (a) = a
kernels makes this category the prototypical example of
is a group homomorphism. an abelian category.
 3

7 See also
Fundamental theorem on homomorphisms

Ring homomorphism

8 References
Dummit, D. S.; Foote, R. (2004). Abstract Algebra
(3 ed.). Wiley. pp. 7172. ISBN 9780471433347.

Lang, Serge (2002), Algebra, Graduate Texts in

Mathematics, 211 (Revised third ed.), New York:
Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-0-387-95385-4, Zbl
0984.00001, MR 1878556

9 External links
See Tfm

Group Homomorphism. PlanetMath.

4 10 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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