Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2014/ia/paper-3/5d/i/solution

Conjugation in the symmetric group sends to . Hence commutes with exactly when it preserves the unordered pair . It can independently swap that pair and arbitrarily permute the remaining points. Therefore the centraliser of a transposition is
Let . The orbits of a group action generated by are its two-point blocks. Any centraliser element must permute those blocks, and can choose independently whether to swap the two points in each image block. Conversely every such choice commutes with , since it preserves the partner relation. This centraliser of a fixed-point-free involution is the permutation wreath product , with

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