Construction of large permutation representations for matrix groups (Q4247375)

This paper describes in great detail a computer program for enumerating a large orbit of subspaces of a large vector space under a group. The specific example for which this program was written, is an orbit of 173 067 389 subspaces of dimension 45 in a 1333-dimensional space over the field of order 11, permuted by a group which the author and others wish to prove is the sporadic simple group \(J_4\). The goal is then to obtain a new existence proof for \(J_4\), a result which is claimed in a preprint (reference [7] of the paper under review) by \textit{G. D. Cooperman}, \textit{W. Lempken}, \textit{M. Weller} and \textit{G. O. Michler} [which has now appeared in Prog. Math. 173, 161-175 (1999)]. Unfortunately, as the author points out, the calculation has not been completed, as the orbit has not been proved to be closed under the group generators. From the figures provided in the paper it would seem that this might take another ten years CPU time, in addition to the nearly ten years already used for the easier parts of the calculation. It is not explained why 45-dimensional subspaces of \(\text{GF}(11)^{1333}\) are used, when 1-dimensional subspaces of \(\text{GF}(2)^{112}\) would suffice, and can be enumerated (completely) in at most a couple of days CPU time, with a new program by F. Lübeck and M. Neunhöffer of RWTH Aachen. Note: Hash functions have been used in this area for many years, for example by R. A. Parker since the early 1980s, in implementations of the basic algorithm described in this paper. They were not first introduced into computational group theory in [5]=[\textit{G. Cooperman}, \textit{L. Finkelstein}, \textit{M. Tselman} and \textit{B. York}, J. Symp. Comput. 24, No. 3-4, 471-488 (1997; Zbl 0884.20010)]. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0908.00025].