Systems of equivalence relations on countable sets (Q1065047)

An equivalence system (X,E) is a pair consisting of a set X and a set E of equivalence relations on X. The automorphism group Aut(X,E) is the group of all permutations of X that leave each relation in E invariant. We consider systems (X,E) with X countable and E totally ordered. We show that in this case Aut(X,E) is transitive on X if and only if the following condition is fulfilled. Whenever e and f with \(e<f\) are a covering pair in the completion of E, each equivalence class of f contains the same number of classes of e. We also give a description of the automorphism groups which arise in this way.