On second cohomology of duals of compact groups

Abstract: We show that for any compact connected group G the second cohomology group defined by unitary invariant 2-cocycles on \hat G is canonically isomorphic to H^2(\hat{Z(G)};T). This implies that the group of autoequivalences of the C*-tensor category Rep G is isomorphic to H^2(\hat{Z(G)};T)\rtimes\Out(G). We also show that a compact connected group G is completely determined by Rep G. More generally, extending a result of Etingof-Gelaki and Izumi-Kosaki we describe all pairs of compact separable monoidally equivalent groups. The proofs rely on the theory of ergodic actions of compact groups developed by Landstad and Wassermann and on its algebraic counterpart developed by Etingof and Gelaki for the classification of triangular semisimple Hopf algebras. In two appendices we give a self-contained account of amenability of tensor categories, fusion rings and discrete quantum groups, and prove an analogue of Radford's theorem on minimal Hopf subalgebras of quasitriangular Hopf algebras for compact quantum groups.