On derangements in simple permutation groups

DOI10.1017/FMS.2025.10064MaRDI QIDQ6963527zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Timothy C. Burness, Marco Fusari

Publication date 7 July 2025

Published in Forum of Mathematics, Sigma (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1017/FMS.2025.10064

zbMATH Keywords

derangementsfinite simple groupspermutation groups

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

General theory for finite permutation groups (20B05) Primitive groups (20B15) Finite simple groups and their classification (20D05) Maximal subgroups (20E28) Simple groups (20E32)

Review text

The focus of this paper is the set of derangements in a finite simple group \(G\) in a transitive action on a set \(\Omega\). The set of derangements is denoted \(\Delta(G)\) (or \(\Delta(G, \Omega)\)) and their proportion in \(G\) is \(\delta(G) = |\Delta(G)| / |G|\). For a given simple group \(G\), the minimum value of \(\delta(G, \Omega)\) taken over all transitive \(G\)-sets \(\Omega\) is denoted \(\alpha(G)\). According to the Boston-Shalev conjecture (now a theorem of \textit{J. Fulman} and \textit{R. Guralnick} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 370, No. 7, 4601--4622 (2018; Zbl 1494.20076)] and \textit{T. Łuczak} and \textit{L. Pyber} [Comb. Probab. Comput. 2, No. 4, 505--512 (1993; Zbl 0817.20002)]), if \(G\) is simple then \(\alpha(G)\) is bounded away from zero.\N\NThe present paper contributes to our knowledge about derangements in simple groups in many ways. Here is a sample of the results in the paper:\N\N1. \(\alpha(A_n) \to 1/e\) as \(n \to \infty\) and in fact \(\alpha(A_n) = \delta(A_n, \{1, \dots, n\})\) for all sufficiently large \(n\) (the authors conjecture that \(n \ge 9\) is sufficient).\N\N2. The values of \(\alpha(G)\) are determined and listed for all sporadic simple groups.\N\N3. For simple primitive groups \(G\) with soluble point stabilizer, the minimum value (\(89/325\)) of \(\delta(G, H)\) is attained by the Tits group \(G = {}^2F_4(2)'\) and a subgroup \(H = 2^2 . [2^8].S_3\). The authors speculate that \(89 / 325\) is in fact the minimum value of \(\alpha(G)\) over all finite simple groups \(G\).\N\N4. A generalization of Boston-Shalev is given: it is shown that if \(G\) is a finite primitive permutation group and \(N\) is the socle of \(G\) then \(\delta(N)\) is bounded away from zero and again the minimum value is determined when \(G\) has soluble point stabilizer.\N\N5. \(G = \Delta(G)^2\) for all finite simple primitive groups with soluble point stabilizer. Indeed, this was known already for all sufficiently large finite simple transitive groups by a result by \textit{M. Larsen} et al. [Forum Math. Sigma 10, Paper No. e83, 30 p. (2022; Zbl 1507.20005)].\N\N6. Any finite simple transitive group is generated by two conjugate derangements.

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