Regular maps with an alternating or symmetric group as automorphism group (Q6051038)

A map \(\mathcal{M}\) is a 2-cell embedding of a connected graph or multigraph into a closed surface, dividing the surface into simply-connected regions (the faces of \(\mathcal{M}\)). The flags of \(\mathcal{M}\) are the right-angled triangles in its barycentric subdivision with the vertices of each flag consisting of a vertex of \(\mathcal{M}\), the mid-point of an edge \(e\) incident with \(v\) and the centre of a face \(f\) incident with \(v\) and \(e\). An automorphism of \(\mathcal{M}\) is a bijection from \(\mathcal{M}\) to itself taking vertices to vertices, edges to edges and faces to faces and preserving incidences among them. The map \(\mathcal{M}\) is called regular if \(\Aut(\mathcal{M})\) is transitive and hence regular on the flags of \(\mathcal{M}\). A map \(\mathcal{M}\) on a closed orientable surface is called orientably-regular if the group \(\Aut^{+}(\mathcal{M})\) of all orientation-preserving automorphisms of \(\mathcal{M}\) acts regularly on the arcs of \(\mathcal{M}\). Such a map might or might not admit reflections; those that do are regular while those that do not are called chiral The paper under review provides a complete determination of which of the alternating groups \(A_{n}\) and the symmetric groups \(S_{n}\) occur as the automorphism group of some regular or chiral map on an orientable surface and which of them occur as the automorphism group of a regular map on a non-orientable surface. For this purpose the author studies smooth quotients of the ordinary triangle group \[ \Delta(2,k,m)=\langle x, y \mid x^{2}, y^{k}, (xy)^{m} \rangle \] (`smooth' meaning simply that the orders \(2\), \(k\) and \(m\) of the elements \(x\), \(y\) and \(xy\) are preserved) and of the extended triangle group \[ \Delta^{*}(2,k,m)=\langle x^{2},y^{k},(xy)^{m},t^{2},(xt)^{2}, (yt)^{2} \rangle, \] where \(k\) is the valency and \(m\) is the face-size of \(\mathcal{M}\). He focuses on the case \(m=3\), and, more particularly, on classic cases \((m,k)\in \{(3,7), (3,8)\}\).