Flag-transitive, point-imprimitive 2-designs and direct products of symmetric groups (Q6126443)

Summary: Consider the direct product of symmetric groups \(S_c \times S_n\) and its natural action on \(\mathcal{P}=C\times N\), where \(|C|=c\) and \(|N|=n\). We characterize the structure of 2-designs with point set \(\mathcal{P}\) admitting flag-transitive, point-imprimitive automorphism groups \(H\leq S_c\times S_n\). As an example of its applications, we show that \(H\) cannot be any subgroup of \(D_{2c}\times S_n\) or \(S_c\times D_{2n}\). Besides, some families of 2-designs admitting flag-transitive automorphism groups \(S_c\times S_n\) are constructed by using complete bipartite graphs and cycles. Two families of these also admit flag-transitive, point-primitive automorphism groups \(S_c\wr S_2,\) a family of which attain the Cameron-Praeger upper bound \(v=(k-2)^2\).