A New Look at the Burnside-Schur Theorem

The famous Burnside–Schur theorem states that every primitivefinite permutation group containing a regular cyclic subgroupis either 2-transitive or isomorphic to a subgroup of a 1-dimensionalaffine group of prime degree. It is known that this theoremcan be expressed as a statement on Schur rings over a finitecyclic group. Generalizing the latter, Schur rings are introducedover a finite commutative ring, and an analogue of this statementis proved for them. Also, the finite local commutative ringsare characterized in permutation group terms. 2000 MathematicsSubject Classification 20B10, 20B15, 05E99.