Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ia Paper 3 1D Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
Conjugating a cycle merely relabels its entries:Thus conjugate permutations have the same cycle type. Conversely, if and have the same cycle type, match the entries of each cycle of bijectively and in cyclic order with those of a cycle of of the same length. Extending these matches to a permutation gives .
Let be the centralizer of . Its -conjugacy class remains one -conjugacy class exactly when contains an odd permutation. Indeed, in that case has index two in , so the orbit-stabilizer theorem givesIf the centralizer contains only even permutations, the class has half the size and the class splits into two classes.
The even cycle types in areThe classes of the identity, a three-cycle, and a double transposition do not split: their centralizers contain an odd permutation. The centralizer of a five-cycle is its cyclic subgroup of order five, which lies in , so that class splits in two. Therefore
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ia Paper 3 6D c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
An element of order three in has cycle type or . There aresingle three-cycles. For two disjoint three-cycles, choose the two unordered three-element supports and an orientation on each:Hence contains elements of order three.