Direct limit of groups

This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Direct limit of groups" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In mathematics, a direct limit of groups is the direct limit of a direct system of groups. These are central objects of study in algebraic topology, especially stable homotopy theory and homological algebra. They are sometimes called stable groups, though this term normally means something quite different in model theory.

Certain examples of stable groups are easier to study than "unstable" groups, the groups occurring in the limit. This is a priori surprising, given that they are generally infinite-dimensional, constructed as limits of groups with finite-dimensional representations.