Cycle indices of linear, affine, and projective groups (Q1368764)

Many counting problems in combinatorics can be solved by Polyá's theory of enumeration, which is an ingenious application of the concept of finite group actions on sets. [For a modern treatment of this theory see: \textit{A. Kerber}, Algebraic combinatorics via finite group actions, BI-Wissenschaftsverlag (1991; Zbl 0726.05002).] A central notion in this theory is the cycle index of a finite \(G\)-set \(_GX\). Here \(G\) is a finite group acting on a finite set \(X\). For any element \(g\in G\) let \(a_i(g)\) be the number of cycles of length \(i\) in the symmetric group \(\Sigma_X\), induced by the action of \(g\) on \(X\). Then the cycle index of \(_GX\) is the following polynomial \(Z(G,X)\) in the indeterminates \(x_1,x_2,\dots,x_{|X|}\): \[ Z(G,X):=\frac{1}{|G|}\sum_{g\in G} \prod^{|X|}_{i=1} x_i^{a_i(g)}. \] In the present paper \(Z(G,X)\) is determined for the following cases: \(G=\text{GL}(n,F_q)\), the general linear group over the finite field \(F_q\), or \(G=\text{Aff}(n,F_q)\) the affine group (i.e. the semidirect product \(F^n_q:\text{GL}(n,F_q))\) both acting naturally on the set \(X=F^n_q\) and \(G:=\text{PGL}(n,F_q):=\text{GL}(n,F_q)/Z(\text{GL}(n,F_q))\) acting naturally on the projective space \(X=\text{PG}(n-1,F_q)\). In the last section the author describes how these cycles indices can be used to enumerate isometry classes of linear codes. The corresponding routines have been implemented in the program system SYMMETRICA and can be obtained via anonymous ftp 132.180.16.20 in the file dist/SYM.tar.Z.