TITLE: If $G$ is isomorphic to $H$, then ${\rm Aut}(G)$ is isomorphic to ${\rm Aut}(H)$
QUESTION [9 upvotes]: If a group $G$ is isomorphic to $H$, prove that ${\rm Aut}(G)$ is isomorphic to ${\rm Aut}(H)$.

Can someone provide a step by step solution? Explaining along the way our strategy in proving this.

REPLY [5 votes]: Let $\phi:G\to H$ be an isomorphism. A useful intuition is that $G$ and $H$ are just two manifestations of the same object, except that the group elements may have different names in the two cases. The mapping $\phi$ tells us for each element $g\in G$ which element $\phi(g)\in H$ corresponds to this element. In other words, $\phi$ tells us how to rename the elements of $G$ to obtain elements of $H$. The inverse of this isomorphism, $\phi^{-1}:H\to G$ tells us, how to get from an element $h\in H$ back to an element $\phi^{-1}(h)\in G$.
Now suppose $\alpha:G\to G$ is an automorphism. (Note that an automorphism may be regarded as "a structure-preserving renaming of the elements within the group".) Since we regard $H$ as just another version of $G$ with different names of the elements, we should expect this automorphism to correspond to some automorphism $\Phi(\alpha):H\to H$. But how to get this automorphism? 
Remembering that we consider an element $h\in H$ to be just a renamed version of some element $g\in G$, namely $g = \phi^{-1}(h)$, we are led to the idea that we may define the desired automorphism $\Phi(\alpha)$ by simply renaming the element $h$ to "whatever it's called in $G$", then doing what $\alpha$ does, to obtain the result, and then renaming it back, to obtain "the name of the result in $H$".
If we trace what this does, we obtain: $$h\mapsto \phi^{-1}(h)\mapsto \alpha(\phi^{-1}(h))\mapsto \phi(\alpha(\phi^{-1}(h))),$$ so the automorphism $\Phi(\alpha): H\to H$ will be defined by
$$\Phi(\alpha)=\phi\circ\alpha\circ\phi^{-1}.$$
You may verify that $\Phi:\operatorname{Aut}(G)\to\operatorname{Aut}(H)$, defined in this way, is indeed an isomorphism of groups. (Note that $$\Phi(\beta)\circ\Phi(\alpha)=(\phi\circ\beta\circ\phi^{-1})\circ(\phi\circ\alpha\circ\phi^{-1})=\phi\circ\beta\circ\alpha\circ\phi^{-1}=\Phi(\beta\circ\alpha).$$)
We can visually express the definition of $\Phi$ by the following commutative diagram:
$$\newcommand{\ra}[1]{\kern-1.5ex\xrightarrow{\ \ #1\ \ }\phantom{}\kern-1.5ex}
\newcommand{\ras}[1]{\kern-1.5ex\xrightarrow{\ \ \smash{#1}\ \ }\phantom{}\kern-1.5ex}
\newcommand{\da}[1]{\bigg\downarrow\raise.5ex\rlap{\scriptstyle#1}}
\newcommand{\ua}[1]{\bigg\uparrow\raise.5ex\rlap{\scriptstyle#1}}
\begin{array}{c}
G & \ra{\alpha} & G\\
\da{\phi} & & \ua{\phi^{-1}}\\
H & \ras{\Phi(\alpha)} & H\\
\end{array}$$