Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 3 4 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Choose and identify with by . Normality means that the point stabilizer acts on by conjugation, andDouble transitivity therefore says that is transitive on . All nonidentity elements of have the same order. By Cauchy's theorem for finite groups, some element has order a prime dividing , so that common order is . Cauchy's theorem excludes every other prime from , hence is a finite p-group.
By the center argument from Q1, . The center is characteristic in and therefore invariant under the conjugation action of . Its nonidentity elements form a nonempty invariant subset of the transitive set , so . Thus is abelian of exponent :This is elementary abelian regular kernels in doubly transitive groups; knowing only that all element orders agree would not by itself prove commutativity.
Every is uniquely with and , because regularity supplies the unique sending to . Hence . The conjugation action of on is faithful: an element centralizing and fixing fixes every , and is the identity permutation. Group automorphisms of an elementary abelian p-group are exactly invertible -linear maps, so . Choosing a vector-space basis therefore givesUnder this embedding, is the translation subgroup and the point stabilizer is a linear subgroup transitive on nonzero vectors. The action is assumed to have at least two points, as usual for a doubly transitive group.