English

Dixon's asymptotic without CFSG

Group Theory 2023-12-12 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

Without using the classification of finite simple groups, we show that the probability that two random elements of SnS_n generate a primitive group smaller than AnA_n is at most exp(c(nlogn)1/2)\exp(-c(n \log n)^{1/2}). As a corollary we get Dixon's asymptotic expansion 11/n1/n24/n323/n4 1 - 1/n - 1/n^2 - 4/n^3 - 23/n^4 - \cdots for the probability that two random elements of SnS_n (or AnA_n) generate a subgroup containing AnA_n.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2307.02151,
  title  = {Dixon's asymptotic without CFSG},
  author = {Sean Eberhard},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.02151},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

4 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-28T11:22:30.906Z