THE NUMBER AND SIZE OF ORBITS OF SOME PERMUTATION GROUPS

Abstract

It is shown that Aut ?, the group of homeomorphisms of the rational numbers with the usual topology, has 2 ^N_o orbits on the power set P(?). We call S ? ? a moiety if S and its complement in ? are infinite. It is shown that the orbit of any moiety S under Aut ? has cardinality 2^N_o while the orbit of S under Aut(?, ≤), the group of order preserving automorphisms of ?, has cardinality N_o if and only if S is a finite union of disjoint rational intervals with rational endpoints.