On the category of weak Cayley table morphisms between groups

Weak Cayley table functions between groups are generalized conjugacy-preserving homomorphisms, under which products of images are conjugate to images of products. There is a weak Cayley table bijection between two groups iff they have the same 2-characters. In this paper, weak Cayley table functions are augmented to include the specific conjugating elements, leading to the concept of a weak (Cayley table) morphism. If the conjugating elements are chosen subject to a crossed-product condition, then the weak morphisms between groups form a category. The forgetful functor to this category from the category of group homomorphisms is shown to possess a left adjoint. Two weak morphisms are said to be homotopic if they project to the same weak Cayley table function. As a first step in the analysis of the category of weak morphisms, the group of units of the monoid of weak morphisms homotopic to the identity automorphism of a group is described.