Another character theoretic formula for base size

DOI10.1007/S00013-025-02165-3MaRDI QIDQ6918000zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Coen del Valle

Publication date 10 October 2025

Published in Archiv der Mathematik (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1007/S00013-025-02165-3

zbMATH Keywords

base sizeirreducible characterKülshammer graphpermutation groupsubgroup depth

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

General theory for finite permutation groups (20B05) Symmetric groups (20B30) Ordinary representations and characters (20C15)

Review text

A base for a finite permutation group \(G\) is a sequence \(\mathcal{B}\) of points such that its pointwise stabilizer \(G_\mathcal{B}\) is trivial. The base size \(b(G)\) is the minimal size of a base of \(G\). A homomorphism \(\phi: G \longrightarrow \{1,-1\}\) is called base-controlling if, for any sequence \(\mathcal{B}\) of points, \(\mathcal{B}\) is a base for \(G\) if and only if \(\phi(G_\mathcal{B}) = 1\).\N\NNow suppose that \(G\) is transitive with point stabilizer \(H\) and base-controlling homomorphism \(\phi\). The main result of the paper relates \(b(G)\) to properties of the graph \(\mathcal{K}(G,H)\) whose vertices are the irreducible characters of \(H\) and where \(\alpha, \beta \in \mathrm{Irr}(H)\) are adjacent if and only if the induced characters \(\alpha^G\) and \(\beta^G\) have a common constituent. More precisely, the author shows that \(b(G) - 1\) equals the distance between the restriction \(\phi_H\) and the trivial character \(1_H\) in \(\mathcal{K}(G,H)\), which is also the diameter of \(\mathcal{K}(G,H)\).\N\NAs a corollary, the author proves a conjecture by \textit{T. Fritzsche} et al. [J. Algebra 381, 96--109 (2013; Zbl 1293.20012)] on the base size of the symmetric group \(\mathrm{Sym}(n)\), in its action on subsets of \(\{ 1,\ldots,n\}\).

Cites work

• A character theoretic formula for the base size
• A formula for the base size of the symmetric group in its action on subsets
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3552764 (Why is no real title available?)
• Minimal degree, base size, order: selected topics on primitive permutation groups
• Minimum bases for permutation groups: The greedy approximation
• On subgroup depth. (With an appendix by S. Danz and B. Külshammer).
• On the depth of subgroups and group algebra extensions.
• The base size of the symmetric group acting on subsets
• The depth of Young subgroups of symmetric groups.

This page was built for publication: Another character theoretic formula for base size

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q6918000)