Group Theory - Assignment-6

Let G be a group acting on a set A and φ be the corresponding permutation

representation of G on SA .
(1) Give an example of the following types of group actions: Transitive,
not-transitive, faithful, not faithful.
(2) Show that theT stabilizer in G of any element a ∈ A is a subgroup of G.
(3) Prove that StabG (a) = Kernel(φ). Moreover for a ∈ A, g ∈ G
a∈A

StabG (g · a) = g · StabG (a) · g −1

(4) Lebel the vertices of a regular n-gon as {1, 2, · · · , n} and consider the
action of D2n on this set where each element α ∈ D2n permutes the
corresponding vertices. Show that this action is faithful. For n = 3, the
action of D6 on the labelled 3 vertices gives an injective mapping from
D6 to S3 . Show that this is an isomorphism ( This gives another proof
of D6 ∼= S3 ) .
(5) State and prove Cayley’s theorem.
(6) Find conjugacy classes and their sizes for : D8 , Q8 , Z2 × S3 .
(7) Show that if G/Z(G) is cyclic then G is abelian. [ Hint: If G/Z(G) is
cyclic with a generator gZ(G) then show that every element of G can
be written as xn z for some n ∈ Z, z ∈ Z(G)].
(8) By using (7) show that if G is of order p2 where p is a prime number
then G is abelian. In fact in this case G ∼ = Z/p2 Z or Z/pZ × Z/pZ.
(9) Let G = GL2 (C) and consider the subgroup H,
 
a b
H={ | a, b, c ∈ C, ac 6= 0}
0 c
Show that every element of G is a conjugate of some element of H.