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03 Order and Conjugacy

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15 views3 pages

03 Order and Conjugacy

Uploaded by

RAVINDRASINGH CHAUHAN
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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1.

Order and Conjugacy


1. Order. For notational convenience, we will denote the product
x · y of two elements x and y in a group G by xy. Also we denote the
k-fold product of x with itself by xk . Also set x0 = id.
Let G be a group and x ∈ G. Consider the set

hgi := {x0 , x, x2 , x3 , · · · }.

If this set is infinite then we say that g has infinite order. Otherwise
there exist j > i ≥ 0 such that xi = xj . This identity can be rewritten
as xi = xi · xj−1 , whence, xj−i = id. Thus there exists k > 0 such that
xk = id. We define the order of g to be

min{k > 0 | g k = id}.

Example 1. If x = id, then x1 = x = id, so the order of id is 1. In


fact, id is the only element with order 1.

Example 2. Consider the group (Z/4Z, +). The identity element


0 has order 1, 1 and 3 have order 4, and 2 has order 2.

2. Conjugacy.

Definition 3 (Conjugacy). Let G be a group and x, y ∈ G we say


that x is conjugate to y (denoted x ∼ y) if there exists z ∈ G such that
y = zxz −1 .

Conjugacy is an equivalence relation. Indeed, it is reflexive because


x = idxid−1 for all x ∈ G. It is transitive because, if x ∼ y and
y ∼ z, then there exist elements u, v ∈ G such that y = uxu−1 and
z = vyv −1 . We get z = vuxu−1 v −1 . Note that (uv)−1 = v −1 u−1 ,
so z = (uv)x(uv)−1 , so x ∼ z. Finally it is symmetric because if
y = zxz −1 , then noting that (z −1 )−1 = z, we have x = (z −1 )y(z −1 )−1 .
Therefore if x ∼ y then y ∼ x.

3. Cycle Decomposition of Permutations. Consider G = Sn ,


the permutation group on G letters, An element σ ∈ Sn can be visual-
ized as the directed graph which has an edge from i → j if σ(i) = j.
For example, the permutation 356421 has graph:
1
2

1
6 2

5 3
4

Since σ is a bijection, every node in this graph has exactly one in


arrow and one out arrow. It follows that this graph is a disjoint union
of cycles, namely sequences (i1 , . . . , ir ) of disinct nodes such that sigma
sends i1 to i2 , i2 to i3 , . . . , ir−1 to ir , and finally, ir back to i1 . In the
permutation 356421, the cycles are (1, 3, 6), (2, 5) and (4). We say that
it has cycle decomposition ((1, 3, 6), (2, 5), (4)). This notation is not
unique, because, for example, (1, 3, 6) and (3, 6, 1) represent the same
cycle.
The cycle type of a permutation is the set of lengths of its cycles,
written in weakly decreasing order. The permutation 356421 has cycle
type (3, 2, 1).

4. Cycle Type and Order. Suppose (i1 , . . . , ir ) is a cycle of a


permutation σ. Imagine that i1 , . . . , ir form a circle. For example,
when r = 6, we have:
i1
i6 i2

i5 i3
i4

The arrows indicate the action of σ on elements of this cycle, a clockwise


rotation of one unit. The permutation σ k is a clockwise rotation of k
units. In this example, σ k (ij ) = ij for all j = 1, . . . , 6 if and only if
k is a multiple of 6. For the general cycle (i1 , . . . , ir ), σ k (ij ) = ij for
j = 1, . . . , r, if and only of k is a multiple of r.
3

Now suppose σ has cycle type (λ1 , . . . , λl ) for some integers λ1 , . . . , λl ),


Then each element of the jth cycle is fixed by σ k if and only if λj di-
vides k. Therefore σ k fixes all the elements of [n] if and only if λj |k
for all 1 ≤ j ≤ l, or equivalently if and only if LCM(λ1 , . . . , λl )|k. We
have:
Theorem 4. The order of a permutation with cycle type (λ1 , . . . , λl )
is LCM(λ1 , . . . , λl ).
The permutation 356421 from the previous section has cycle type
(3, 2, 1) and hence its order is 6.
5. Cycle Type and Conjugacy Classes. The following obvious
lemma is crucial to understanding conjugacy classes in Sn .
Lemma 5. If σ and τ are permutations in Sn , and σ takes i to j,
then τ ◦ σ ◦ τ −1 takes τ (i) to τ (j).
Corollary 6. For σ, τ ∈ Sn , if (i1 , . . . , ir ) is a cycle of σ, then
(τ (i1 ), . . . , τ (ir )) is a cycle of τ στ −1 .
This corollary is an immediate consequence of the preceding lemma.
It follows that conjugate elements of Sn have the same cycle type. On
the other hand, suppose σ and τ have the same cycle type (λ1 , . . . , λl ).
We can write their cycle decompositions as
σ = (i11 , . . . , i1λ1 )(i21 , . . . , i2λ2 ) · · · (il1 , . . . , ilλl )
ρ = (j11 , . . . , jλ11 )(j12 , . . . , jλ22 ) · · · (j1l , . . . , jλl l )
Let τ be the permutation defined by τ (ikm ) = jm k
for k = 1, . . . , l,
−1
m = 1, . . . , λk . Then, by Corollary 6, ρ = τ στ . We have proved the
following result:
Theorem 7. Two permutations in Sn are conjugate if and only if
they have the same cycle type.
Example 8. The possible cycle types in S5 are (1, 1, 1, 1, 1), (2, 1, 1, 1),
(2, 2, 1), (3, 1, 1), (3, 2), (4, 1) and (5). The group S5 has 7 conjugacy
classes.

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