English

The last patch for classifying shuffle groups

Combinatorics 2023-07-28 v1 Group Theory

Abstract

Divide a deck of knkn cards into kk equal piles and place them from left to right. The standard shuffle σ\sigma is performed by picking up the top cards one by one from left to right and repeating until all cards have been picked up. For every permutation τ\tau of the kk piles, use ρτ\rho_{\tau} to denote the induced permutation on the knkn cards. The shuffle group Gk,knG_{k,kn} is generated by σ\sigma and the k!k! permutations ρτ\rho_{\tau}. It was conjectured by Cohen et al in 2005 that the shuffle group Gk,knG_{k,kn} contains AknA_{kn} if k3k\geq3, (k,n){4,2f}(k,n)\ne\{4,2^f\} for any positive integer ff and nn is not a power of kk. Very recently, Xia, Zhang and Zhu reduced the proof of the conjecture to that of the 22-transitivity of the shuffle group and then proved the conjecture under the condition that k4k\ge4 or knk\nmid n. In this paper, we proved that the group G3,3nG_{3,3n} is 22-transitive for any positive integer nn which is a multiple of 33 but not a power of 33. This result leads to the complete classification of the shuffle groups Gk,knG_{k,kn} for all k2k\ge2 and n1n\ge1.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2307.15012,
  title  = {The last patch for classifying shuffle groups},
  author = {Junyang Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.15012},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T11:42:05.542Z