Tetrahedral symmetry ($T\cong A_4,T_d\cong S_4$)

A regular tetrahedron has a proper rotational symmetry group $T$ of order 12, isomorphic to the alternating group $A_4$ acting on its four vertices. Its full spatial symmetry group $T_d$ has order 24 and is isomorphic to the symmetric group $S_4$; the additional operations reverse orientation. Three-fold vertex/face-axis rotations and half-turns about opposite-edge midpoints generate the proper group. The distinction matters when a field symmetry uses only proper rotations, but a scalar density also admits reflections.

The full symmetry group of a regular tetrahedron is the symmetric group $S_4$ acting on its vertices. Its subgroups with at most six elements have eight types up to conjugation, with the following representative subgroups and counts:A transposition is a reflection through the plane containing the two fixed vertices and the midpoint of the exchanged edge. A double transposition is a half-turn about the axis joining the midpoints of the two exchanged edges. A three-cycle is a one-third-turn about a vertex-to-opposite-face axis. A four-cycle is a quarter-turn composed with a reflection perpendicular to the opposite-edge midpoint axis; it is an improper orthogonal transformation.

The unique Klein four-group containing only double transpositions consists of the three opposite-edge half-turns and the identity element. The other three Klein four-groups consist of two perpendicular mirror reflections, their half-turn product, and the identity element. Each $S_3$ is a stabilizer subgroup of a vertex, including the three rotations and three mirror reflections preserving that vertex.

For completeness, a Klein four-group containing $(12)$ must contain the commuting involution $(34)$ or $(12)(34)$, yielding the displayed subgroup; one containing no transpositions must contain all three double transpositions. An $S_3$ subgroup has a unique cyclic subgroup of cardinality three, whose unique fixed vertex must therefore be preserved by the entire $S_3$. These observations and the disjoint cycle decomposition exhaust the types allowed by groups of order at most six. The counts sum to $25$.

The identity and three half-turns form a normal Klein four-group $V_4$ inside the proper rotational tetrahedral symmetry group $A_4$. Conjugation preserves double-transposition cycle type, establishing normality. The quotient group has order three and is therefore cyclic. If $r$ is any 3-cycle, every element is uniquely $r^{j}k$ with $j\in \{0,1,2\}$ and $k\in V_4$. The formula $r^{j}k\mapsto e^{2\pi ij/3}$ defines a surjective group homomorphism with kernel $V_4$. Normality allows the factors from $V_4$ to be moved past powers of $r$, making exponents add modulo three and proving the homomorphism property directly.

The proper rotational tetrahedral symmetry group is $A_4$, acting by even permutations of the vertices. Its conjugacy classes consist of the identity, the three half-turns about opposite-edge midpoint axes, four rotations through $+2\pi /3$ about outward-pointing vertex axes, and their four inverses. A 3-cycle has a three-element centralizer, so its class has size $12/3=4$. Conjugating it to its inverse would require an odd permutation on its three moved vertices, so the two orientations form different classes in $A_4$ even though they lie in one class in $S_4$.