A property of \(A_7\), and a maximal 3-dimensional linear section of GL(4, 2) (Q1292875)

In the nice paper under review some combinatorial properties of the alternating group of degree seven, \(A_7\), are investigated. To this aim the notion of \(7\)-cluster is crucial. A \(7\)-cluster in \(A_7\) is a \(7\)-subset \(\Pi=\{\psi_1,\psi_2,\dots,\psi_7\}\) of \(A_7\) such that \(\psi_i^{-1}\psi_j\) has order six, for all \(i\neq j\). A \(7\)-cluster is said to be normalized if it contains the identity. The author proves that by conjugation of \(A_7\), normalized \(7\)-clusters fall into exactly two orbits, say \(O\) and \(O'\), each of size \(105\). A recipe to construct such orbits is also given. A linear section of the general linear group \(\text{GL}(V)\), where \(V\) is an \(n\)-dimensional vector space over a field \(K\), is a subspace, say \(S\), of the \(n^2\)-dimensional vector space \(\text{End}(n,K)\), which is contained in \(\text{GL}(V)\cup\{0\}\). Using the isomorphism \(T\) between the group \(\text{GL}(4,2)\) and the alternating group \(A_8\), the author proves that for normalized clusters \(\Pi\) belonging to one but not both of the orbits \(O\) and \(O'\), the seven elements of \(T(\Pi)\) are the non-zero elements of a maximal \(3\)-dimensional linear section of \(\text{GL}(4,2)\).