English

Incidence properties of cosets in loops

Combinatorics 2012-10-01 v3

Abstract

We study incidence properties among cosets of finite loops, with emphasis on well-structured varieties such as antiautomorphic loops and Bol loops. While cosets in groups are either disjoint or identical, we find that the incidence structure in general loops can be much richer. Every symmetric design, for example, can be realized as a canonical collection of cosets of a finite loop. We show that in the variety of antiautomorphic loops the poset formed by set inclusion among intersections of left cosets is isomorphic to that formed by right cosets. We present an algorithm that, given a finite Bol loop SS, can in some cases determine whether S|S| divides Q|Q| for all finite Bol loops QQ with SQS \le Q, and even whether there is a selection of left cosets of SS that partitions QQ. This method results in a positive confirmation of Lagrange's Theorem for Bol loops for a few new cases of subloops. Finally, we show that in a left automorphic Moufang loop QQ (in particular, in a commutative Moufang loop QQ), two left cosets of SQS\le Q are either disjoint or they intersect in a set whose cardinality equals that of some subloop of SS.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1108.3656,
  title  = {Incidence properties of cosets in loops},
  author = {Michael Kinyon and Kyle Pula and Petr Vojtechovsky},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1108.3656},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

17 pages, to appear in J. Combinatorial Design; V.2: minor changes suggested by referee; V3: final version, more minor changes