Related papers: Finding involutions with small support

An involution is a bijection that is its own inverse. Given a permutation $\sigma$ of $[n],$ let $\mathsf{invol}(\sigma)$ denote the number of ways $\sigma$ can be expressed as a composition of two involutions of $[n].$ We prove that the…

For an element $g$ in a group $X$, we say that $g$ has 2-part order $2^{a}$ if $2^{a}$ is the largest power of 2 dividing the order of $g$. We prove lower bounds on the proportion of elements in finite classical groups in odd characteristic…

Let $G$ be a finite permutation group of degree $n$ and let ${\rm ifix}(G)$ be the involution fixity of $G$, which is the maximum number of fixed points of an involution. In this paper we study the involution fixity of almost simple…

In this note we present a simplified and slightly generalized version of a lemma the authors published in 1987. The lemma as stated here asserts that if the order of a permutation of $n$ elements is greater than $n^{\alpha}$ then some…

We prove that most permutations of degree $n$ have some power which is a cycle of prime length approximately $\log n$. Explicitly, we show that for $n$ sufficiently large, the proportion of such elements is at least $1-5/\log\log n$ with…

We study permutations on n elements preserving orientation (parity) of every subset of size k. We describe all groups of these permutations. Unexpectedly, these groups (except for some special cases) are either trivial, cyclic or dihedral.…

We show that for every $\varepsilon>0$ there is an absolute constant $c(\varepsilon)>0$ such that the following is true. The union of any $n$ arithmetic progressions, each of length $n$, with pairwise distinct differences must consist of at…

Brauer and Fowler noted restrictions on the structure of a finite group G in terms of the order of the centralizer of an involution t in G. We consider variants of these themes. We first note that for an arbitrary finite group G of even…

The problem of genealogy of permutations has been solved partially by Stefan (odd order) and Acosta-Hum\'anez & Bernhardt (power of two). It is well known that Sharkovskii's theorem shows the relationship between the cardinal of the set of…

Let $G$ be a simply connected semisimple group over $\mathbb{C}$. We show that a certain involution of an open subset of the affine Grassmannian of $G$, defined previously by Achar and the author, corresponds to the action of the nontrivial…

The problem of genealogy of permutations has been solved partially by Stefan (odd order) and Acosta-Hum\'anez \& Bernhardt (power of two). It is well known that Sharkovskii's theorem shows the relationship between the cardinal of the set of…

It is known that, when $n$ is even, the number of permutations of $\{1,2,\dots,n\}$ all of whose cycles have odd length equals the number of those all of whose cycles have even length. Adin, Heged\H{u}s and Roichman recently found a…

In this article we consider the cycle structure of compositions of pairs of involutions in the symmetric group S_n chosen uniformly at random. These can be modeled as modified 2-regular graphs, giving rise to exponential generating…

Let $ (\rho, V) $ be an irreducible representation of the symmetric group $ S_n$ (or the alternating group $ A_n$), and let $ g $ be a permutation on $n$ letters with each of its cycle lengths divides the length of its largest cycle. We…

An involution is a permutation that is its own inverse. Given a permutation $\sigma$ of $[n],$ let $\mathbf{N}_{n}(\sigma)$ denote the number of ways to write $\sigma$ as a product of two involutions of $[n].$ If we endow the symmetric…

In this paper we look at polynomials arising from statistics on the classes of involutions, $I_n$, and involutions with no fixed points, $J_n$, in the symmetric group. Our results are motivated by F. Brenti's conjecture which states that…

We show that within any strong orbit equivalent class, there exist minimal subshifts with arbitrarily low superlinear complexity. This is done by proving that for any simple dimension group with unit $(G,G^+,u)$ and any sequence of positive…

Let $G$ be a transitive permutation group on a finite set of size at least $2$. By a well known theorem of Fein, Kantor and Schacher, $G$ contains a derangement of prime power order. In this paper, we study the finite primitive permutation…

Let $i(n,k)$ be the proportion of permutations $\pi\in\mathcal{S}_n$ having an invariant set of size $k$. In this note we adapt arguments of the second author to prove that $i(n,k) \asymp k^{-\delta} (1+\log k)^{-3/2}$ uniformly for $1\leq…

Let $G$ be a non-compact group, $K$ the compact subgroup fixed by a Cartan involution and assume $G/K$ is an exceptional, symmetric space, one of Cartan type $E,F $ or $G$. We find the minimal integer, $L(G),$ such that any convolution…