Skew-morphisms of cyclic \(p\)-groups (Q1676216)

Given a complementary factorization of a finite group \(G = CY\) where \(Y = \langle y\rangle,\) we can rewrite \(yc,\) for each \(c\in C,\) as \(\phi(c)y^{\pi(a)}\). The function \(\phi\) is called a skew-morphism of \(C\) and \(\pi\) is its power function; the defining equation is \(\phi(cd) = \phi(c)\phi^{\pi(c)}(d).\) Skew-morphisms first arose about 20 years ago in the study of regular Cayley maps; in this context, one also requires that an orbit of \(\phi\) generates \(C\) and is closed under inverses (call these map skew-morphisms). Understanding skew-morphisms is equivalent to understanding complementary factorizations with one factor cyclic. The structure of such factorizations is notoriously complicated, even when \(C\) is cyclic. This paper classifies all skew-morphisms for a cyclic \(p\)-group, where \(p\) is an odd prime. In particular, it is proved that the cyclic group \(C_{p^e}\) of order \(p^e\) has exactly \((p-1)(p^{2e-1}-p^{2e-2}+2)/(p+1)\) skew-morphisms.