Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T20:19:19.088Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Supplements of bounded permutation groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2014

Stephen Bigelow*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA, E-mail: bigelow@math.berkeley.edu

Abstract

Let λ ≤ κ be infinite cardinals and let Ω be a set of cardinality κ. The bounded permutation group Bλ(Ω), or simply Bλ, is the group consisting of all permutations of Ω which move fewer than λ points in Ω. We say that a permutation group G acting on Ω is a supplement of Bλ if BλG is the full symmetric group on Ω.

In [7], Macpherson and Neumann claimed to have classified all supplements of bounded permutation groups. Specifically, they claimed to have proved that a group G acting on the set Ω is a supplement of Bλ if and only if there exists Δ ⊂ Ω with ∣Δ∣ < λ such that the setwise stabiliser G{Δ} acts as the full symmetric group on Ω ∖ Δ. However I have found a mistake in their proof. The aim of this paper is to examine conditions under which Macpherson and Neumann's claim holds, as well as conditions under which a counterexample can be constructed. In the process we will discover surprising links with cardinal arithmetic and Shelah's recently developed pcf theory.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Symbolic Logic 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

[1]Burke, M. R. and Magidor, M., Shelah's pcf theory and its applications, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic, vol. 50 (1990), pp. 207254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2]de Bruijin, N. G., A theorem on choice functions, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen Indagationes Mathematicae, vol. 19 (1957), pp. 409411.Google Scholar
[3]Dodd, A. and Jensen, R. B., The core model, Annals of Mathematical Logic, vol. 20 (1981), pp. 4375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4]Dodd, A. and Jensen, R. B., The covering lemma for K, Annals of Mathematical Logic, vol. 22 (1982), pp. 130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[5]Jech, T., Set theory, Academic Press, New York, 1978.Google Scholar
[6]Kunen, K., Set theory: An introduction to independence proofs, North Holland, Amsterdam, 1980.Google Scholar
[7]Macpherson, H. D. and Neumann, Peter M., Subgroups of infinite symmetric groups, Journal of the London Mathematical Society, vol. 42 (1990), no. 2, pp. 6484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[8]Magidor, M., On the singular cardinals problem I, Israel Journal of Mathematics, vol. 28 (1977), pp. 131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[9]Scott, W. R., Group theory, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1964.Google Scholar
[10]Semmes, Stephen W., Infinite symmetric groups, maximal subgroups, and filters, Abstracts of the American Mathematical Society, vol. 69 (1982), p. 38, preliminary report.Google Scholar
[11]Shelah, S., The singular cardinals problem: Independence results, Proceedings of a symposium on set theory, Cambridge 1978 (Mathias, A., editor), London Mathematical Society Lecture Notes Series, no. 87, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1983, pp. 116134.Google Scholar
[12]Shelah, S., Cardinal arithmetic for skeptics, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, vol. 26 (1992), pp. 197210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[13]Shelah, S., Cardinal arithmetic, Oxford University Press, New York, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar