No label defined (Q4241964)

This paper is devoted to studying the ways in which the Monster simple group may be generated by three 6-transpositions, that is involutions in class 2A. If we denote such a triple of involutions \((a,b,c)\), then there is an action of the 3-string braid group on such triples, preserving the product \(abc\), given by mapping \((a,b,c)\) to \((b,a^b,c)\), \((a,c,b^c)\) and \((c,b^c,a^{bc})\). This action induces an action of the quotient \(\text{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z})\) on conjugacy classes of such triples, and this seems to be related to the so-called `generalized moonshine'. Orbit representatives of triples under this action can be endowed with some geometrical structure, according to the conjugacy classes to which \(ab\), \(bc\), \(ca\) and \(abc\) belong. These are the `nets' of the title. Unfortunately, there are 1.400.384 orbits of the Monster on triples of 6-transpositions, and it is unknown how many orbits the braid group has on this set, so a complete enumeration seems impractical at the present time. Nevertheless, the present paper contains a detailed list of the first 30 nets, where the product \(abc\) has order 1, 2, or 3. The enumeration has been completed for the cases when \(abc\) has order at most 7. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0897.00027].