Enumerating Transitive Finite Permutation Groups

Denote by f(n) the number of subgroups of the symmetric groupSym(n) of degree n, and by f_trans(n) the number of its transitivesubgroups. It was conjectured by Pyber [9] that almost all subgroupsof Sym(n) are not transitive, that is, f_trans(n)/f(n) tendsto 0 when n tends to infinity. It is still an open questionwhether or not this conjecture is true. The difficulty comesfrom the fact that, from many points of view, transitivity isnot a really strong restriction on permutation groups, and thereare too many transitive groups [9, Sections 3 and 4]. In thispaper we solve the problem in the particular case of permutationgroups of prime power degree, proving the following result.1991 Mathematics Subject Classification 20B05, 20D60.