Isotropy and Combination Problems

Abstract: In a previous paper, the author and his collaborators studied the phenomenon of isotropy in the context of single-sorted equational theories, and showed that the isotropy group of the category of models of any such theory encodes a notion of inner automorphism for the theory. Using results from the treatment of combination problems in term rewriting theory, we show in this article that if $\mathbb{T}_1$ and $\mathbb{T}_2$ are (disjoint) equational theories satisfying minimal assumptions, then any free, finitely generated model of the disjoint union theory $\mathbb{T}_1 + \mathbb{T}_2$ has trivial isotropy group, and hence the only inner automorphisms of such models, i.e. the only automorphisms of such models that are coherently extendible, are the identity automorphisms. As a corollary, we show that the global isotropy group of the category of models $(\mathbb{T}_1 + \mathbb{T}_2)\mathsf{mod}$, i.e. the group of invertible elements of the centre of this category, is the trivial group.