Diagonal groups and arcs over groups

Designs, Codes and Cryptography - In an earlier paper by three of the present authors and Csaba Schneider, it was shown that, for $$m\ge 2$$ , a set of $$m+1$$ partitions of a set $$\Omega $$ , any...     

Movement and Separation of Subsets of Points Under Group Actions

Let G be a permutation group on a set , and let m and k be integerswhere 0<m<k. For a subset of , if the cardinalities ofthe sets ^g\, for gG, are finite and bounded, then is said tohave bounded movement, and the movement of is defined as move()=max_gG|^g\|. If there is a k-element subset such that move()m, it is shown that some G-orbit has length at most (k²–m)/(k–m).When combined with a result of P. M. Neumann, this result hasthe following consequence: if some infinite subset has boundedmovement at most m, then either is a G-invariant subset withat most m points added or removed, or nontrivially meets aG-orbit of length at most m²+m+1. Also, if move ()m for allk-element subsets and if G has no fixed points in , then either||k+m (and in this case all permutation groups on have thisproperty), or ||5m–2. These results generalise earlierresults about the separation of finite sets under group actionsby B. J. Birch, R. G. Burns, S. O. Macdonald and P. M. Neumann,and groups in which all subsets have bounded movement (by theauthor).     

Generalized Quadrangles and Transitive Pseudo‐Hyperovals

A pseudo‐hyperoval of a projective space , q even, is a set of subspaces of dimension such that any three span the whole space. We prove that a pseudo‐hyperoval with an irreducible transitive stabilizer is elementary. We then deduce from this result a classification of the thick generalized quadrangles that admit a point‐primitive, line‐transitive automorphism group with a point‐regular abelian normal subgroup. Specifically, we show that is flag‐transitive and isomorphic to , where is either the regular hyperoval of PG(2, 4) or the Lunelli–Sce hyperoval of PG(2, 16).     

Constructing flag-transitive,point-imprimitive designs

We give a construction of a family of designs with a specified point-partition and determine the subgroup of automorphisms leaving invariant the point-partition. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for a design in the family to possess a flag-transitive group of automorphisms preserving the specified point-partition. We give examples of flag-transitive designs in the family, including a new symmetric 2-(1408,336,80) design with automorphism group \(2^{12}:((3\cdot \mathrm {M}_{22}):2)\) and a construction of one of the families of the symplectic designs (the designs \(S^-(n)\)) exhibiting a flag-transitive, point-imprimitive automorphism group.     

Finite 2‐Geodesic Transitive Graphs of Prime Valency

We classify noncomplete prime valency graphs satisfying the property that their automorphism group is transitive on both the set of arcs and the set of 2‐geodesics. We prove that either Γ is 2‐arc transitive or the valency p satisfies , and for each such prime there is a unique graph with this property: it is a nonbipartite antipodal double cover of the complete graph with automorphism group and diameter 3.     

Neighbour transitivity on codes in Hamming graphs

We consider a code to be a subset of the vertex set of a Hamming graph. In this setting a neighbour of the code is a vertex which differs in exactly one entry from some codeword. This paper examines codes with the property that some group of automorphisms acts transitively on the set of neighbours of the code. We call these codes neighbour transitive. We obtain sufficient conditions for a neighbour transitive group to fix the code setwise. Moreover, we construct an infinite family of neighbour transitive codes, with minimum distance δ = 4, where this is not the case. That is to say, knowledge of even the complete set of code neighbours does not determine the code.     

Quotients of incidence geometries

We develop a theory for quotients of geometries and obtain sufficient conditions for the quotient of a geometry to be a geometry. These conditions are compared with earlier work on quotients, in particular by Pasini and Tits. We also explore geometric properties such as connectivity, firmness and transitivity conditions to determine when they are preserved under the quotienting operation. We show that the class of coset pregeometries, which contains all flag-transitive geometries, is closed under an appropriate quotienting operation.     

Doubly transitive automorphism groups of block designs

If G is a doubly transitive group of automorphisms of a block design with λ = 1, then for any block Δ of the design and any point α in Δ, the set Δ?{α} is a block of imprimitivity for G_α. What are sufficient conditions for a doubly transitive but not doubly primitive permutation group G to be a group of automorphisms of a non-trivial block design with λ = 1 ? Can the design or the group G be identified if there is a nonidentity automorphism in G fixing every point of some block of the design? Both of these questions are investigated and some answers are given.     

Note on primitive permutation groups and a diophantine equation

It is shown that there are no transitive rank 3 extensions of the projective linear groups H, PSL(m,q) ? H ? PFL(m,q), for any prime power q and integer m ? 3. In the course of the proof the diophantine equation 5^m + 11 = x^p2, where m, x are positive integers, arose. As such equations can now be solved completely we had the choice of using number theory or geometry to complete the proof.