English

Intersecting subsets in finite permutation groups

Group Theory 2024-12-30 v2 Combinatorics

Abstract

Let GSym(Ω)G\leqslant\mathrm{Sym}(\Omega) be transitive, and let SS be an intersecting subset, namely, the ratio xy1xy^{-1} of any elements x,ySx,y\in S fixes some point. An EKR-type problem is to characterize transitive groups GSym(Ω)G\leqslant\mathrm{Sym}(\Omega) such that any intersecting set is upper bounded by Gω|G_\omega|, where ωΩ\omega\in\Omega. A nice result of Meagher-Spiga-Tiep (2016) tells us that if GG is 2-transitive, then indeed SGω|S|\leqslant|G_\omega|. A natural next step would be to explore intersecting subsets for primitive groups and quasiprimitive groups. Our study in this paper shows that for quasiprimitive permutation groups, the size S|S| can be arbitrarily larger than Gω|G_\omega|. We conjecture that for quasiprimitve groups, the upperbound for S|S| is O(GωΩ12)O(|G_\omega||\Omega|^{1\over2}). As a starting point, we prove that S/(GωΩ12)2/2{|S|/(|G_\omega||\Omega|^{1\over2}})\leqslant{\sqrt2/2} for all quasiprimitive actions of the Suzuki groups G=Sz(q)G=\mathrm{Sz}(q). To show that our conjectured upper bound is tight, we provide examples of groups for which S/(GωΩ12){|S|/(|G_\omega||\Omega|^{1\over2}}) is arbitrarily close to 2/2{\sqrt2/2}. As far as general transitive groups concerned, infinity families of examples produced show that the ratio S/(GωΩ12){|S|/(|G_\omega||\Omega|^{1\over2}}) can be arbitrarily large.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2403.17783,
  title  = {Intersecting subsets in finite permutation groups},
  author = {CaiHeng Li and Venkata Raghu Tej Pantangi and Shujiao Song and Yilin Xie},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.17783},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

26 pages, 2 figures 1.Replace the Theorem 1.5 from 'intersecting subgroups of Suzuki groups' to '$\rho(G/\Omega)<1/\sqrt{2}$ when G is a Suzuki group'. 2.Remove Proposition 2.4 3. Add Examples2.5-2.6, Lemma 2.7-2.8

R2 v1 2026-06-28T15:34:18.015Z