Derangements in cosets of primitive permutation groups

Prime order derangements in primitive permutation groups

Let G be a transitive permutation group on a finite set Ω of size at least 2. An element of G is a derangement if it has no fixed points on Ω. Let r be a prime divisor of |Ω|. We say that G is r-elusive if it does not contain a derangement of order r, and strongly r-elusive if it does not contain one of r-power order. In this note we determine the r-elusive and strongly r-elusive primitive acti...

Derangements in Simple and Primitive Groups

We investigate the proportion of fixed point free permutations (derangements) in finite transitive permutation groups. This article is the first in a series where we prove a conjecture of Shalev that the proportion of such elements is bounded away from zero for a simple finite group. In fact, there are much stronger results. This article focuses on finite Chevalley groups of bounded rank. We al...

Derangements and p-elements in permutation groups

2. (Jordan) A transitive permutation group of degree n > 1 contains a derangement. In fact (Cameron and Cohen) the proportion of derangements in a transitive group G is at least 1/n. Equality holds if and only if G is sharply 2transitive, and hence is the affine group {x 7→ ax + b : a, b ∈ F, a 6= 0} over a nearfield F. The finite nearfields were determined by Zassenhaus. They all have prime po...

Distinguishing Primitive Permutation Groups

Let G be a permutation group acting on a set V . A partition π of V is distinguishing if the only element of G that fixes each cell of π is the identity. The distinguishing number of G is the minimum number of cells in a distinguishing partition. We prove that if G is a primitive permutation group and |V | ≥ 336, its distinguishing number is two.

Factorizations of Primitive Permutation Groups