Exam Group Theory - Solutions: Exercise 1: Permutation Groups and Dihedral Groups
Exam Group Theory - Solutions: Exercise 1: Permutation Groups and Dihedral Groups
Een Nederlandse versie vind je hiervoor. Clearly write your name and student number above
each page you hand in. A calculator, telephone, books, notes or old exercises are not allowed.
To answer your questions you may use the results (not the exercises) in the book ‘Groups and
Symmetry’ by Armstrong, unless a result is explicitly asked for. Further: a group G is called
simple if the only normal subgroups of G are given by {e} with e ∈ G the identity element,
and G itself. You may use that An , n ≥ 5 is a simple group (this is mostly useful for the bonus
exercise).
5. (6pt) Let G be a finite group that acts on a set X. For g ∈ G let X g = {x ∈ X | g(x) = x}.
Then |X g | divides |G|. Answer: False. Exercise 3 gives many counter examples.
6. (6pt) Consider the action of GLn on X := GLn by conjugation. Thus g(x) = gxg −1 , g ∈
GLn , x ∈ X. This action has infinitely many orbits. Hint: Use the determinant in a
suitable way. Answer: We have det(g −1 xg) = det(x) so elements in the same orbit have
the same determinant. As there are infinitely many possibilities for the determinant, we
have infinitely many orbits.
7. (6pt) There exists a simple group of order 7 · 11 · 137. Answer: False. By the first Sylow
theorem there exists a subgroup of order 137, say H. The number such subgroups is a
divisor of 7 · 11 which is 1 mod 137. So there is only one such H. As for every g ∈ G the
set gHg −1 is actually a subgroup of G of order 137 we see that we must have gHg −1 = H.
So H is normal. Therefore G is not simple.
2. (4pt) How many homomorphisms Sn → Dk are there? Remark: The answer depends on k,
but is independent of n. Answer: By the previous exercise the image of a homomorphism
is completely determined by the image of the 2-cykel (1 2), because then indeed all elements
in An must map to the identity and all elements of (1 2)An must have the same image as
(1 2). The image of (1 2) must either be the identity or an element of order 2, call this
element x. There are k + 1 choices for such x in Dk in case k is odd, and k + 2 such
elements in case k is even (this is more or less exercise 1.1). We need to show that mapping
(1 2)An to x and An to e is a homomorphism. But this is easy, because this mapping is
the composition of the quotient map Sn → Sn /An ' Z2 and the homomorphism Z2 → Dk
that sends 1 to x.
3. (Bonus: 4pt) Now let n ≥ 5 and k ≥ 3 be arbitrary, so k may be divisible by 3. How many
homomorphisms Sn → Dk are there? Answer: We first show that 5.1 still holds, also if
k is divisible by 3. Restrict ϕ to a map An → Dk . As An is simple and the kernel of (the
restriction of) ϕ is a normal subgroup of An we see that either ker(ϕ) = e or ker(ϕ) = An .
If ker(ϕ) = e then ϕ is injective and so An would be a normal subgroup of Dk . However,
in Dk any 2 elements of order 3 would commute (as they are in < r >) and in An this is
not true. So we conclude that this is nonsense and we must have that ker(ϕ) = An . So we
showed that exercsise 5.1 still holds. Then one can copy the answer of 5.2 verbatim to the
case of exercise 5.3 to conclude.