Cayley digraphs and (1,j,n)-sequencings of the alternating groups \(A_ n\) (Q580356)

The authors solve the problem of finding a sequencing \(\Pi_ 1,\Pi_ 2,...,\Pi_{| A_ n|}\) of the elements of the alternating group \(A_ n\) which minimizes the cost function \[ C=\sum^{| A_ n| -1}_{i=1}c(\Pi_ i^{-1}\circ \Pi_{i+1}) \] where \(c(\Pi)=| \{j:\Pi\) (j)\(\neq j\}|\). The sequencing is constructed by finding a directed Hamiltonian path in the Cayley digraph \(D_ n\) of \(A_ n\) determined by the generating set \(B_ n=\{1,j,n):\) \(j\in \{2,3,...,n- 1\}\}\) for \(n\leq 3\).