Related papers: Sharp upper bounds on the minimal number of elemen…

Let $\Sigma_{g,b}$ denote a closed oriented surface genus $g$ with $b$ punctures and let $Mod_{g,b}$ denote its mapping class group. Luo proved that if the genus is at least 3, the group $Mod_{g,b}$ is generated by involutions. He also…

We show that the mapping class group of a closed oriented surface of genus at least three is generated by 3 elements of order 3 and by 4 elements of order 4. Note that the mapping class group cannot be generated by finitely many torsion…

The crossing number of a graph G is the minimum number of pairwise intersections of edges in a drawing of G. Motivated by the recent work [Faria, L., Figueiredo, C.M.H. de, Sykora, O., Vrt'o, I.: An improved upper bound on the crossing…

Given a permutation group $G$, the derangement graph of $G$ is the Cayley graph with connection set the derangements of $G$. The group $G$ is said to be innately transitive if $G$ has a transitive minimal normal subgroup. Clearly, every…

We prove that, for $g\geq19$ the mapping class group of a nonorientable surface of genus $g$, $\textrm{Mod}(N_g)$, can be generated by two elements, one of which is of order $g$. We also prove that for $g\geq26$, $\textrm{Mod}(N_g)$ can be…

Given a permutation group $G$, the derangement graph $\Gamma_G$ of $G$ is the Cayley graph with connection set the set of all derangements of $G$. We prove that, when $G$ is transitive of degree at least $3$, $\Gamma_G$ contains a triangle.…

Let M(n, d) be the maximum size of a permutation array on n symbols with pairwise Hamming distance at least d. We use various combinatorial, algebraic, and computational methods to improve lower bounds for M(n, d). We compute the Hamming…

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,…

For a permutation group $G$ acting on a set $V$, a subset $\mathcal{F}$ of $G$ is said to be an intersecting set if for every pair of elements $g,h\in \mathcal{F}$ there exists $v \in V$ such that $g(v) = h(v)$. The intersection density…

Let $G$ be a finite transitive group on a set $\Omega$, let $\alpha\in \Omega$ and let $G_\alpha$ be the stabilizer of the point $\alpha$ in $G$. In this paper, we are interested in the proportion $$\frac{|\{\omega\in \Omega\mid \omega…

We explore transversals of finite index subgroups of finitely generated groups. We show that when $H$ is a subgroup of a rank $n$ group $G$ and $H$ has index at least $n$ in $G$ then we can construct a left transversal for $H$ which…

We provide lower estimates on the minimal number of generators of the profinite completion of free products of finite groups. In particular, we show that if C_1,...,C_n are finite cyclic groups then there exists a finite group G which is…

The subdegrees of a transitive permutation group are the orbit lengths of a point stabilizer. For a finite primitive permutation group which is not cyclic of prime order, the largest subdegree shares a non-trivial common factor with each…

A graph $G$ is {$k$-crossing-critical} if $cr(G)\ge k$, but $cr(G\setminus e)<k$ for each edge $e\in E(G)$, where $cr(G)$ is the crossing number of $G$. It is known that for any $k$-crossing-critical graph $G$, $cr(G)\le 2.5k+16$ holds, and…

The classical Cauchy-Davenport theorem implies the lower bound n+1 for the number of distinct subsums that can be formed from a sequence of n elements of the cyclic group Z_p (when p is prime and n<p). We generalize this theorem to a…

We give a small generating set for the twist subgroup of the mapping class group of a non-orientable surface by Dehn twists. The difference between the number of the generators and a lower bound of numbers of generators for the twist…

A classical theorem of Jordan asserts that if a group $G$ acts transitively on a finite set of size at least $2$, then $G$ contains a derangement (a fixed-point free element). Generalisations of Jordan's theorem have been studied…

Given a finite group $G$, we introduce the \textit{permutability degree} of $G$, as $$pd(G)=\frac{1}{|G| \ |\mathcal{L}(G)|} {\underset{X \in \mathcal{L}(G)}\sum}|P_G(X)|,$$ where $\mathcal{L}(G)$ is the subgroup lattice of $G$ and $P_G(X)$…

A finite transitive permutation group is elusive if it contains no derangements of prime order. These groups are closely related to a longstanding open problem in algebraic graph theory known as the Polycirculant Conjecture, which asserts…

Let $G$ be a finite cyclic group. Every sequence $S$ over $G$ can be written in the form $S=(n_1g)\cdot...\cdot(n_kg)$ where $g\in G$ and $n_1,\cdots,n_k\in[1,{\hbox{\rm ord}}(g)]$, and the index $\ind S$ of $S$ is defined to be the minimum…