On the number and sizes of double cosets of Sylow subgroups of the symmetric group (Q6858765)

Let \(p\) be a prime, \(n\in\mathbb{N}\), \(S_n\) the symmetric group and \(P_n\) a Sylow \(p\)-subgroup of \(S_n\). The paper studies the double coset space \(P_n\backslash S_n/P_n\), focusing on the number of double cosets and on the distribution of their sizes, where \(|P_nxP_n|=|P_n|^2/|P_n\cap P_n^x|\).\N\NTheorem 1.1 introduces \(f(n,p)\) as the probability that \(|P_n\cap P_n^x|>1\) for \(x\in S_n\) uniformly random and proves that (a) for \(p>2\) one has \(f(n,p)\to 0\) as \(n\to\infty\), uniformly in \(2<p\le n\), while (b) for \(p=2\) one has \(\liminf_{n\to\infty} f(n,2)\ge 1-e^{-1/2}\). Theorem 1.2 shows that for \(n\ge 9\) all possible Sylow-\(p\) double coset sizes occur in \(S_n\): for every \(\ell\in\mathbb{N}\) with \(|P_n|\le p^\ell\le |P_n|^2\) there exists \(g\in S_n\) with \(|P_ngP_n|=p^\ell\).