Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 1 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Work with finite groups, as required for these Sylow subgroup counts. Let act by conjugation on the set of Sylow -subgroups. The stabilizer of is . Since is the normal Sylow subgroup of its own normalizer, every -subgroup of that normalizer lies in . Consequently the stabilizer is exactly , and the orbit-stabilizer theorem gives orbit size . The orbit of has size one. Every other orbit size is a power of at least , hence is divisible by . Adding orbit sizes proves the strengthened Sylow congruence from intersections:Now suppose is simple of order . If , its Sylow -subgroup is normal because its number divides three and is one modulo five. If , an involution in the regular permutation action of swaps fifteen pairs, so its sign is negative. The sign of a permutation would give a nontrivial group homomorphism with a proper nontrivial normal kernel. Both cases contradict simplicity. Thus .
The Sylow theorems make a divisor of fifteen. It is not one, since a nontrivial Sylow subgroup would then be normal. It is not three, since the conjugation action on three Sylow subgroups would give a faithful group homomorphism , impossible by order. If , take a Sylow subgroup itself: its normalizer has subgroup index five. If , not all distinct Sylow subgroups can intersect in subgroup index at least four, since that would give . Choose with . Put , of order . It has subgroup index two in both , so is normal in each. Hence contains both distinct Sylow subgroups and has order greater than . It is proper: otherwise would be a nontrivial proper normal subgroup of . Its order is therefore or . The latter would give an index-three subgroup and again an impossible faithful action on three cosets. Thus .
In either case we have the requested subgroup of order or with index-five normalizer. The action on the five cosets of that normalizer is nontrivial and faithful by simplicity. Its image lies in , since composing with sign cannot give a nontrivial map from this simple group of order greater than two to . Thus divides , forcing and equality of orders. This proves the simple groups with order a power of two times fifteen conclusion:For , choose the first column: there are nonzero choices. For each, determinant one is a nonzero linear equation in the second column and has five solutions. Therefore . A central matrix commuting with has zero lower-left entry and equal diagonal entries; commuting also with makes the upper-right entry zero. It is scalar. Determinant one then givesTo establish the projective special linear group over the field with five elements isomorphism without assuming its simplicity, compute its classes. For determinant-one matrices, the characteristic polynomial is with trace . The possibilities over exhaust the group:For trace zero the eigenvalues are , so the determinant-one centralizer is the split diagonal torus of order four. For traces , the discriminant is the nonsquare : the centralizer is the norm-one subgroup of , of order six. In both semisimple cases the determinant map on the full linear centralizer is surjective onto ; consequently each trace type is a single special-linear class. For the noncentral traces , a Jordan block has full linear centralizer with determinant . The determinant image consists of the two squares, so each general-linear class splits into two special-linear classes; the determinant-one centralizer has order . These sizes sum to .
Quotienting by identifies a matrix with its negative. The trace-zero class gives one projective class of size fifteen; the two traces give one class of size twenty; the four noncentral unipotent classes give two classes of size twelve. Their respective projective orders are , by the characteristic polynomials. A normal subgroup is a union of classes containing the identity. The nontrivial proper possible union sizes are , none of which divides . Thus the quotient is simple. Applying the order- result above givesFinally, if over an odd-characteristic field, its minimal polynomial divides the square-free polynomial , so it is diagonalizable with eigenvalues . In dimension two, determinant one requires both eigenvalues equal. Hence or . This proves the unique involution in SL2 over an odd field assertion: the only element of order two in is . If an index-two subgroup existed, it would be normal and have order sixty. By Cauchy theorem it would contain an involution, hence contain . Then would be a normal subgroup of order thirty in the simple quotient , a contradiction. Thus has no index-two subgroup.
The special linear group has nonzero first columns and five second columns giving determinant one, hence order ; its centre is . In the quotient by this centre, the nonidentity conjugacy classes have sizes , corresponding to projective element orders . These arise from trace zero, paired traces , and paired unipotent traces . No proper union of these classes with the identity has size dividing , so the quotient is simple. The simple groups with order a power of two times fifteen result identifies it with .