Permutation Representations of the Symmetry Groups of Regular Hyperbolic Tessellations (Q4711229)

Let \([p,q]\) denote the symmetry group of the regular hyperbolic tesselation of \(p\)-gons meeting \(q\) at a vertex. Higman has questioned which of the groups \([p,q]\) have representations onto almost all symmetric and alternating groups, noting that this question lends itself to a nice interpretation in terms of group actions on a reflectively symmetric bicolored graph. For \(p\in\{3,4\}\), then this question has been answered affirmatively by various authors for sufficiently large \(q\). In this work, the methods previously used are unified and, by analyzing the placement of fixed points, the question is answered affirmatively in all but finitely many of the groups \([p,q]\). Except for the unresolved cases, an upper bound is given for \(n\) such that \(S_ n\) is not a homomorphic image of a given \([p,q]\). H.Servatius (Cambridge/Mass.) MA The modular group \(\Gamma = \langle x,y\mid x^2 = y^3 = 1\rangle\) has the property that every alternating and symmetric group is a homomorphic image of \(\Gamma\) except \(A_ 6\), \(A_ 7\), \(A_ 8\), \(S_ 5\), \(S_ 6\), \(S_ 7\) or \(S_ 8\). Higman has asked which discrete reflective hyperbolic groups also exhibit this type of behavior. In the paper under review the authors introduce the following property \(\mathcal H\): an infinite finitely presented group \(G\) has property \(\mathcal H\) if there is an integer \(N > 1\) such that either \(A_ n\) or \(S_ n\) is a homomorphic image of \(G\) for all \(n > N\). If \(p\) and \(q\) satisfy \((p - 2)(q - 2) > 4\), then \(\{p,q\}\) denotes the tessellation of the hyperbolic plane by regular \(p\)-gons, \(q\) meeting at each vertex, and \([p,q]\) denotes the symmetry group of that tessellation. The authors show that the following theorems hold. Theorem 1. If \(q > 57\), then either \(A_ n\) or \(S_ n\) is a homomorphic image of \([5,q]\) for all \(n > 4(57)(58)\). Theorem 2. If \(p\) is prime, \(p \geq 7\), \(q > 3p + 2\), then either \(A_ n\) or \(S_ n\) is a homomorphic image of \([p,q]\) for all \(n > (2q)(2q + 1)\). Theorem 3. If \(p\) is prime, \(25 \leq p \leq q\), then either \(A_ n\) or \(S_ n\) is a homomorphic image of \([p,q]\) for all \(n > [(2q)-16][(2q+1)-16]\).