On the Cameron-Praeger conjecture

This paper takes a significant step towards confirming a long-standing and far-reaching conjecture of Peter J. Cameron and Cheryl E. Praeger. They conjectured in 1993 that there are no non-trivial block-transitive 6-designs. We prove that the Cameron-Praeger conjecture is true for the important case of non-trivial Steiner 6-designs, i.e. for 6-(v,k,λ) designs with λ=1, except possibly when the group is PΓL(2,pe) with p=2 or 3, and e is an odd prime power.     

The classification of flag-transitive Steiner 4-designs

Among the properties of homogeneity of incidence structures flag-transitivity obviously is a particularly important and natural one. Consequently, in the last decades flag-transitive Steinert-designs (i.e. flag-transitive t-(v,k,1) designs) have been investigated, whereas only by the use of the classification of the finite simple groups has it been possible in recent years to essentially characterize all flag-transitive Steiner 2-designs. However, despite the finite simple group classification, for Steiner t-designs with parameters t > 2 such characterizations have remained challenging open problems for about 40 years (cf. [11, p. 147] and [12 p. 273], but presumably dating back to around 1965). The object of the present paper is to give a complete classification of all flag-transitive Steiner 4-designs. Our result relies on the classification of the finite doubly transitive permutation groups and is a continuation of the author's work [20, 21] on the classification of all flag-transitive Steiner 3-designs. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 51E10 . Secondary 05B05 . 20B25     

Imprimitive flag-transitive symmetric designs

A recent paper of O'Reilly Regueiro obtained an explicit upper bound on the number of points of a flag-transitive, point-imprimitive, symmetric design in terms of the number of blocks containing two points. We improve that upper bound and give a complete list of feasible parameter sequences for such designs for which two points lie in at most ten blocks. Classifications are available for some of these parameter sequences.     

The existence of symmetric designs with parameters (105, 40, 15)

The existence of symmetric designs with parameters (105, 40, 15) was shown. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Combin Designs 7: 17–19, 1999     

马休群与斯坦诺5设计

讨论了马体群旗传递作用于斯坦诺5设计上的情况，得到了如下结论：设D=（X，Ω，I）是非平凡的斯坦诺5设计，D的自同构群G旗传递地作用在D上。若G是几乎单群，则 （i）基柱Soc（G）不是下列单群：N=Mv，v=11，22，23和N=M11,v=12 （ii）若N=M12，v=12，则D是一个5-（12，6，1）设计，且G M12 （iii）若N=M24，v=24，则D是一个5-（24，8，1）设计，且G M24。     

Locally s-distance transitive graphs and pairwise transitive designs

The study of locally s-distance transitive graphs initiated by the authors in previous work, identified that graphs with a star quotient are of particular interest. This paper shows that the study of locally s-distance transitive graphs with a star quotient is equivalent to the study of a particular family of designs with strong symmetry properties that we call nicely affine and pairwise transitive. We show that a group acting regularly on the points of such a design must be abelian and give general construction for this case.     

Regular symmetric groups of boolean functions

We show that with the exception of four known cases: C₃, C₄, C₅, and , all regular permutation groups can be represented as symmetric groups of boolean functions. This solves the problem posed by A. Kisielewicz in the paper [A. Kisielewicz, Symmetry groups of boolean functions and constructions of permutation groups, J. Algebra 199 (1998) 379-403]. A slight extension of our proof yields the same result for semiregular groups.     

A hole‐size bound for incomplete t‐wise balanced designs

An incomplete t‐wise balanced design of index λ is a triple (X,H,??) where X is a υ–element set, H is a subset of X called the hole, and B is a collection of subsets of X called blocks, such that, every t‐element subset of X is either in H or in exactly λ blocks, but not both. If H is a hole in an incomplete t‐wise balanced design of order υ and index λ, then |H| ≤ υ/2 if t is odd and |H| ≤ (υ ? 1)/2 if t is even. In particular, this result establishes the validity of Kramer's conjecture that the maximal size of a block in a Steiner t‐wise balanced design is at most υ/2 if t is odd and at most (υ?1)/2 when t is even. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Combin Designs 9: 269–284, 2001     

Primitive Rank 3 Groups on Symmetric Designs

We determine the symmetric designs which admit a group such that G has a nonabelian socle and is a primitiverank 3 group on points (and blocks).     

On the structure of groups of virtually trivial automorphisms

If G is an arbitrary group, then the group Aut_vt(G) consists, by definition, of all virtually trivial automorphisms of G, i.e. of all automorphisms that have the fixed-point subgroup of finite index in G. We investigate the structure of Aut_vt(G) and show that it possesses a certain “well-behaved” normal series which demonstrates its closeness to finitary linear groups. This is then used to prove that each simple section of Aut_vt(G) is a finitary linear group.     

Semigroups in symmetric Lie groups

Let G be a Lie group and L C G a Lie subgroup. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for a family of cosets of L to generate a subsemigroup with nonempty interior in G. We apply these conditions to symmetric pairs (G, L) where L is a subgroup of G such that Go C L C Gi and r is an involutive automorphism of G. As a consequence we prove that for several r the fixed point group GI is a maximal semigroup.     

Rigidity of Branch Groups Acting on Rooted Trees

Automorphisms of groups acting faithfully on rooted trees are studied. We find conditions under which every automorphism of such a group is induced by a conjugation from the full automorphism group of the rooted tree. These results are applied to known examples such as Grigorchuk groups, Gupta–Sidki group, etc.     

Structure and automorphism groups of Hadamard designs

Let n be the order of a Hadamard design, and G any finite group. Then there exists many non-isomorphic Hadamard designs of order 2^{12|G| + 13} n with automorphism group isomorphic to G.This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation.     

On Some Applications of Transformation Group Theory

In this article we give several results and problems on the permutation groups, having an interest for cryptography. The abstract of the talk at the international conference Algebra and its applications (Krasnoyarsk, August 5–9, 2002).Mathematics Subject Classifications (2000) 05E20, 20B05, 20F05.     

Classification of Cyclic Steiner Quadruple Systems

The problem of classifying cyclic Steiner quadruple systems (CSQSs) is considered. A computational approach shows that the number of isomorphism classes of such designs with orders 26 and 28 is 52,170 and 1,028,387, respectively. It is further shown that CSQSs of order 2p, where p is a prime, are isomorphic iff they are multiplier equivalent. Moreover, no CSQSs of order less than or equal to 38 are isomorphic but not multiplier equivalent.     

Quasi‐symmetric designs with fixed difference of block intersection numbers

The following results for proper quasi‐symmetric designs with non‐zero intersection numbers x,y and λ > 1 are proved.

• (1) Let D be a quasi‐symmetric design with z = y ? x and v ≥ 2k. If x ≥ 1 + z + z³ then λ < x + 1 + z + z³.
• (2) Let D be a quasi‐symmetric design with intersection numbers x, y and y ? x = 1. Then D is a design with parameters v = (1 + m) (2 + m)/2, b = (2 + m) (3 + m)/2, r = m + 3, k = m + 1, λ = 2, x = 1, y = 2 and m = 2,3,… or complement of one of these design or D is a design with parameters v = 5, b = 10, r = 6, k = 3, λ = 3, and x = 1, y = 2.
• (3) Let D be a triangle free quasi‐symmetric design with z = y ? x and v ≥ 2k, then x ≤ z + z².
• (4) For fixed z ≥ 1 there exist finitely many triangle free quasi‐symmetric designs non‐zero intersection numbers x, y = x + z.
• (5) There do not exist triangle free quasi‐symmetric designs with non‐zero intersection numbers x, y = x + 2.

© 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 15: 49–60, 2007