Related papers: Finding involutions with small support

Let $V$ be an $n$-dimensional left vector space over a division ring $R$ and $n\ge 3$. Denote by ${\mathcal G}_{k}$ the Grassmann space of $k$-dimensional subspaces of $V$ and put ${\mathfrak G}_{k}$ for the set of all pairs $(S,U)\in…

In the stable general linear group over an arbitrary field, we prove that every element with determinant $\pm 1$ is the product of three involutions, and of no less in general. We also obtain several results of the same flavor, with…

We establish that any even permutation from A_n moving at least [3n/4] + o(n) points is the commutator of a generating pair of A_n and a generating pair of S_n. From this we deduce an exponential lower bound on the number of systems of…

We study `good elements' in finite $2n$-dimensional classical groups $G$: namely $t$ is a `good element' if $o(t)$ is divisible by a primitive prime divisor of $q^n-1$ for the relevant field order $q$, and $t$ fixes pointwise an $n$-space.…

Let $G$ be a transitive permutation group acting on a finite set $\Omega$ with $|\Omega|\geqslant 2$. An element of $G$ is said to be a derangement if it has no fixed points on $\Omega$, and by a theorem of Jordan from 1872, $G$ always…

We exhibit, for any positive integer parameter $s$, an involution on the set of integer partitions of $n$. These involutions show the joint symmetry of the distributions of the following two statistics. The first counts the number of parts…

Let $G$ be a nontrivial transitive permutation group on a finite set $\Omega$. An element of $G$ is said to be a derangement if it has no fixed points on $\Omega$. From the orbit counting lemma, it follows that $G$ contains a derangement,…

Let $G$ be a permutation group on a set $\Omega$. A base for $G$ is a subset of $\Omega$ whose pointwise stabiliser is trivial, and the base size of $G$ is the minimal cardinality of a base. If $G$ has base size $2$, then the corresponding…

For an element $g$ of a group $G$, a right Engel sink of $g$ is a subset of $G$ containing all sufficiently long commutators $[...[[g ,x],x],\dots ,x]$ for all $x\in G$. A left Engel sink of $g$ is a subset of $G$ containing all…

We study equivariant Arakelov-Euler characteristics of hermitian sheaves on arithmetic varieties which support a tame action by a finite group G. The tameness of the group action allows us to produce an equivariant Arakelov-Euler…

Answering a question of Geoff Robinson, we compute the large n limiting proportion of i(n,q)/q^[n^2/2], where i(n,q) denotes the number of involutions in GL(n,q). We give similar results for the finite unitary, symplectic, and orthogonal…

This is the fourth paper in a series. We prove a conjecture made independently by Boston et al and Shalev. The conjecture asserts that there is an absolute positive constant delta such that if G is a finite simple group acting transitively…

Let $G\leqslant {\rm Sym}(\Omega)$ be a finite transitive permutation group with point stabiliser $H$. A base for $G$ is a subset of $\Omega$ whose pointwise stabiliser is trivial, and the minimal cardinality of a base is called the base…

The W-set of an element of a weak order poset is useful in the cohomological study of the closures of spherical subgroups in generalized flag varieties. We explicitly describe in a purely combinatorial manner the W-sets of the weak order…

We prove that there is an absolute constant $c>0$ with the following property: if $Z/pZ$ denotes the group of prime order $p$, and a subset $A\subset Z/pZ$ satisfies $1<|A|<p/2$, then for any positive integer…

We classify conjugacy classes of involutions in the isometry groups of nondegenerate, symmetric bilinear forms over the field of two elements. The new component of this work focuses on the case of an orthogonal form on an even dimensional…

We conjecture that if $G$ is a finite primitive group and if $g$ is an element of $G$, then either the element $g$ has a cycle of length equal to its order, or for some $r,m$ and $k$, the group $G\leq S_m\wr S_r$, preserving a product…

A minimal permutation representation of a finite group G is a faithful G-set with the smallest possible size. We study the structure of such representations and show that for certain groups they may be obtained by a greedy construction. In…

Let $G$ be the alternating group of degree $n$. Let $\omega(G)$ be the maximal size of a subset $S$ of $G$ such that $\langle x,y \rangle = G$ whenever $x,y \in S$ and $x \neq y$ and let $\sigma(G)$ be the minimal size of a family of proper…

The orbit dimension $\sigma(G)$ (also called the separation number or rigidity index) of a permutation group $G$ with domain $\Omega$ is the minimum cardinality of a subset $S \subseteq \Omega$ such that, for any two distinct elements…