Vertex-primitive s-arc-transitive digraphs admitting a Suzuki or Ree group

DOI10.1016/J.EJC.2023.103729MaRDI QIDQ6171502zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors

Publication date 18 July 2023

Published in European Journal of Combinatorics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.10508

zbMATH Keywords

\(s\)-arc-transitive digraphdigraphRee groupSuzuki groupvertex-primitive digraph

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Directed graphs (digraphs), tournaments (05C20) Graphs and abstract algebra (groups, rings, fields, etc.) (05C25) Structural characterization of families of graphs (05C75) Primitive groups (20B15) Finite simple groups and their classification (20D05) Simple groups: alternating groups and groups of Lie type (20D06)

Abstract: The investigation of s-arc-transitivity of digraphs can be dated back to 1989 when the third author showed that s can be arbitrarily large if the action on vertices is imprimitive. However, the situation is completely different when the digraph is vertex-primitive and not a directed cycle. In 2017 the second author, Li and Xia constructed the first infinite family of G-vertex-primitive 2-arc-transitive examples, and asked if there is an upper bound on s for G-vertex-primitive s-arc-transitive digraphs w=that are not directed. In 2018 the second author and Xia showed that if there is a largest such value of s then it will occur when G is almost simple. So far it has been shown that sleq 2 for almost simple groups whose socle is an alternating group or a projective special linear group. The contribution of this paper is to prove that sleq 1 in the case of the Suzuki and the small Ree groups. We give constructions with s=1 to show that the bound is sharp.

Review text

A finite \textit{digraph} \(\Gamma\) is a pair \((V,\to)\) such that \(V\) is the finite set of vertices and \(\to\) is an anti-symmetric and irreflexive relation on \(V\). For a non-negative integer \(s\), we call a sequence \(v_{0}, v_{1},\dots, v_{s}\) in \(V\) an \textit{\(s\)-arc} if \(v_{i}\to v_{i+1}\) for each \(i\in\{0,1,\dots,s-1\}\). A \(1\)-arc is simply called an \textit{arc}. For \(G\leqslant \mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma)\), we say that \(\Gamma\) is a \((G,s)\)-arc-transitive digraph if \(G\) acts transitively on the set of \(s\)-arcs of \(\Gamma\). A transitive subgroup \(G\leqslant \mathrm{Sym}(\Omega)\) is said to be primitive if it does not preserve any non-trivial partition of \(\Omega\). For \(G\leqslant \mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma)\), we say that \(\Gamma\) is \textit{\(G\)-vertex-primitive} if \(G\) acts primitively on \(V\). A graph \(\Sigma\) is a pair \((V,\sim)\) such that \(V\) is the vertex set and \(\sim\) is a symmetric and irreflexive relation on \(V\). A sequence \(v_{0}, v_{1},\ldots, v_{s}\) is an \textit{\(s\)-arc} if \(v_{i}\sim v_{i+1}\) for \(0\leq i\leq s-1\) and \(v_{i}\neq v_{i+2}\) for each \(i\). A graph \(\Sigma\) is said to \textit{\(s\)-arc-transitive} if the automorphism group of \(\Sigma\) acts transitively on the set of \(s\)-arcs. A group \(G\) is said to be an \textit{almost simple group} with socle \(T\) if \(T\triangleleft G\leqslant \mathrm{Aut}(T)\), where \(T\) is a non-abelian simple group. The \(s\)-arc-transitive graphs and digraphs have been extensively studied for many years. \textit{R. Weiss} [Combinatorica 1, 309--311 (1981; Zbl 0486.05032)] proved that finite graphs that are not cycles can be at most 7-arc-transitive. The investigation of \(s\)-arc-transitivity of digraphs can be dated back to 1989 when \textit{C. E. Praeger} [Eur. J. Comb. 10, No. 3, 281--292 (1989; Zbl 0677.05041)] showed that for each \(s\) there are infinitely many finite \(s\)-arc-transitive digraphs that are not \((s+1)\)-arc-transitive, that is to say, \(s\) can be arbitrarily large if the action on vertices is imprimitive. However, vertex-primitive \(s\)-arc-transitive digraphs for large \(s\) seem to be rare. Though extensive attempts had been made to find a vertex-primitive \(s\)-arc-transitive digraph for \(s\geq2\), no such examples were found until 2017 when \textit{M. Giudici} et al. [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. B 127, 1--13 (2017; Zbl 1371.05103)] constructed an infinite family of \(2\)-arc transitive examples. They also asked \textit{if there is an upper bound on \(s\) for vertex-primitive \(s\)-arc-transitive digraphs that are not directed cycles}. The authors are in believe that the answer to this question is yes. Indeed, by Corollary 1.6 in [\textit{M. Giudici} and \textit{B. Xia}, Ars Math. Contemp. 14, No. 1, 67--82 (2018; Zbl 1391.05124)], determining the value of the upper bound has been reduced to the case where the vertex-primitive automorphism group \(G\) is almost simple. It has been shown that \(s\leqslant 2\) if \(G=\mathrm{A}_{m}\) or \(\mathrm{S}_{m}\) [\textit{J. Chen} et al., ``Bounding $s$ for vertex-primitive $s$-arc-transitive digraphs of alternating and symmetric groups, Preprint, \url{arXiv:2111.06579}; \textit{J. Pan} et al., J. Algebra 544, 75--91 (2020; Zbl 1480.20004)], or if \(\mathrm{PSL}_{n}(q)\leqslant G\leqslant \mathrm{Aut}(\mathrm{PSL}_{n}(q))\) [\textit{M. Giudici} et al., J. Pure Appl. Algebra 223, No. 12, 5455--5483 (2019; Zbl 1417.05085)]. In this paper, the authors give an affirmative answer to this question for two more families of almost simple groups. They in fact prove that \(s\leq1\) when the vertex-primitive automorphism group is an almost simple group with socle the Suzuki group or the small Ree group. The authors give constructions with \(s=1\) to show that the bound is sharp.

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Cited in

(6)

• The smallest vertex-primitive 2-arc-transitive digraph
• A short note on non-diagonalizable vertex-primitive digraphs
• Vertex-primitive \(s\)-arc-transitive digraphs of almost simple groups. (Abstract of thesis)
• Exceptional groups and the s-arc-transitivity of vertex-primitive digraphs. I
• Bounding s for vertex-primitive s-arc-transitive digraphs of alternating and symmetric groups
• Vertex-primitive s-arc-transitive digraphs of symplectic groups

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