English

What fraction of an $S_n$-orbit can lie on a hyperplane?

Combinatorics 2020-01-27 v1

Abstract

Consider the SnS_n-action on Rn\mathbb{R}^n given by permuting coordinates. This paper addresses the following problem: compute maxv,HHSnv\max_{v,H} |H\cap S_nv| as HRnH\subset\mathbb{R}^n ranges over all hyperplanes through the origin and vRnv\in\mathbb{R}^n ranges over all vectors with distinct coordinates that are not contained in the hyperplane xi=0\sum x_i=0. We conjecture that for n3n\geq3, the answer is (n1)!(n-1)! for odd nn, and n(n2)!n(n-2)! for even nn. We prove that if pp is the largest prime with pnp\leq n, then maxv,HHSnvn!p\max_{v,H} |H\cap S_nv|\leq \frac{n!}{p}. In particular, this proves the conjecture when nn or n1n-1 is prime.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2001.09123,
  title  = {What fraction of an $S_n$-orbit can lie on a hyperplane?},
  author = {Jiahui Huang and David McKinnon and Matthew Satriano},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.09123},
  year   = {2020}
}

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16 pages