To each automorphism of a spherical building there is naturally associated an "opposition diagram", which encodes the types of the simplices of the building that are mapped onto opposite simplices. If no chamber (that is, no maximal simplex) of the building is mapped onto an opposite chamber then the automorphism is called "domestic". In this paper we give the complete classification of domestic automorphisms of split spherical buildings of types $\mathsf{E}_6$, $\mathsf{F}_4$, and $\mathsf{G}_2$. Moreover, for all split spherical buildings of exceptional type we classify (i) the domestic homologies, (ii) the opposition diagrams arising from elements of the standard unipotent subgroup of the Chevalley group, and (iii) the automorphisms with opposition diagrams with at most $2$ distinguished orbits encircled. Our results provide unexpected characterisations of long root elations and products of perpendicular long root elations in long root geometries, and analogues of the density theorem for connected linear algebraic groups in the setting of Chevalley groups over arbitrary fields.
An automorphism of a spherical building is called domestic if it maps no chamber to an opposite chamber. In this paper we classify domestic automorphisms of spherical buildings of classical type.
We classify the automorphisms of a Moufang hexagon mapping no chamber to an opposite chamber (such automorphisms are called domestic). This forms part of a larger program to classify domestic automorphisms of Moufang spherical buildings.
This note gives an elementary proof that the symmetric groups possess only one exceptional symmetry. I am referring to the fact that the outer automorphism group of the symmetric group $S_n$ is trivial unless $n=6$ and the outer automorphism group of $S_6$ has a unique nontrivial element.
In this article, we study $2$-designs with $\gcd(r,λ)=1$ admitting a flag-transitive almost simple automorphism group with socle a finite simple exceptional group of Lie type. We obtain four infinite families of such designs and provide some examples in each of these families.
Let $\hat G$ be the finite simply connected version of an exceptional Chevalley group, and let $V$ be a nontrivial irreducible module, of minimal dimension, for $\hat G$ over its field of definition. We explore the overgroup structure of $\hat G$ in $\mathrm{GL}(V)$, and the submodule structure of the exterior square (and sometimes the third Lie power) of $V$. When $\hat G$ is defined over a field of odd prime order $p$, this allows us to construct the smallest (with respect to certain properties) $p$-groups $P$ such that the group induced by $\mathrm{Aut}(P)$ on $P/Φ(P)$ is either $\hat G$ or…
This paper determined all pairs $(\mathcal{D},G)$ where $\mathcal{D}$ is a non-symmetric 2-$(v,k,λ)$ design with $(r,λ)=1$ and $G$ is the almost simple flag-transitive automorphism group of $\mathcal{D}$ with an exceptional socle of Lie type. We prove that if $T\trianglelefteq G\leq Aut(T)$ where $T$ is an exceptional group of Lie type, then $T$ must be the Ree group or Suzuki group, and there are five classes of non-isomorphic designs $\mathcal{D}$.
A graph is called a GRR if its automorphism group acts regularly on its vertex-set. Such a graph is necessarily a Cayley graph. Godsil has shown that there are only two infinite families of finite groups that do not admit GRRs : abelian groups and generalised dicyclic groups. Indeed, any Cayley graph on such a group admits specific additional graph automorphisms that depend only on the group. Recently, Dobson and the last two authors showed that almost all Cayley graphs on abelian groups admit no automorphisms other than these obvious necessary ones. In this paper, we prove the analogous resul…
We provide a uniform framework to study the exceptional homogeneous compact geometries of type C3. This framework is then used to show that these are simply connected, answering a question by Kramer and Lytchak, and to calculate the full automorphism groups.
Departing from a Moufang set related to a polarity in an exceptional Moufang quadrangle of type F_4, we construct a rank three geometry. The main property of this new geometry is that its automorphism group is identical to the one of the underlying Moufang set, providing a tool to study this Moufang set in a geometrical way. As a corollary we obtain that every automorphism of an exceptional Moufang quadrangle of type F_4 stabilizing the absolute points of a polarity, also centralizes the polarity. This handles the final case of a similar result for all polarities of Moufang n-gons.
The operation of switching a graph $Γ$ with respect to a subset $X$ of the vertex set interchanges edges and non-edges between $X$ and its complement, leaving the rest of the graph unchanged. This is an equivalence relation on the set of graphs on a given vertex set, so we can talk about the automorphism group of a switching class of graphs. It might be thought that switching classes with many automorphisms would have the property that all their graphs also have many automorphisms. However the main theorem of this paper shows a different picture: with finitely many exceptions, if a non-trivial…
An exceptional point in the moduli space of compact Riemann surfaces is a unique surface class whose full automorphism group acts with a triangular signature. A surface admitting a conformal involution with quotient an elliptic curve is called elliptic-hyperelliptic; one admitting an anticonformal involution is called symmetric. In this paper, we determine, up to topological conjugacy, the full group of conformal and anticonformal automorphisms of a symmetric exceptional point in the elliptic-hyperelliptic locus. We determine the number of ovals of any symmetry of such a surface. We show that …
Let $k$ be an algebraically closed field of characteristic not equal to 2 or 3, let $G$ be an almost simple algebraic group of type $F_4$, $G_2$ or $D_4$ and let $θ$ be an automorphism of $G$ of finite order, coprime to the characteristic. In this paper we consider the $θ$-group (in the sense of Vinberg) associated to these choices; we classify the positive rank automorphisms and give their Kac diagrams and we describe the little Weyl group in each case. As a result we show that all such $θ$-groups have KW-sections, confirming a conjecture of Popov in these cases.
The spectrum of a finite group is the set of its elements orders. Groups are said to be isospectral if their spectra coincide. For every finite simple exceptional group $L=E_7(q)$, we prove that each finite group isospectral to $L$ is isomorphic to a group $G$ squeezed between $L$ and its automorphism group, that is $L\leq G\leq \operatorname{Aut}L$; in particular, up-to isomorphism, there are only finitely many such groups. This assertion, together with a series of previously obtained results, implies that the same is true for every finite simple exceptional group except the group ${}^3D_4(2)…
In positive characteristic, algebraic curves can have many more automorphisms than expected from the classical Hurwitz's bound. There even exist algebraic curves of arbitrary high genus g with more than 16g^4 automorphisms. It has been observed on many occasions that the most anomalous examples invariably have zero p-rank. In this paper, the K-automorphism group Aut(X) of a zero 2-rank algebraic curve X defined over an algebraically closed field K of characteristic 2 is investigated. The main result is that if the curve has genus g greater than or equal to 2, and |Aut(X)|>24g^2, then Aut(X) ha…
In this article, we study symmetric $(v, k, λ)$ designs admitting a flag-transitive and point-primitive automorphism group $G$ whose socle $X$ is a finite simple exceptional group of Lie type. We prove a reduction theorem, severely restricting the possible parameters of such designs. We also prove that the parameters $k$ and $λ$ are not coprime, and neither of these parameters can be prime. Moreover, if $λ$ is at most $100$, we show that there are two such parameters sets, namely, $(351,126,45)$ and $(378,117,36)$ for $G=X=G_{2}(3)$. Our analysis depends heavily on detailed information about a…
Let $G\subset\GL(\BC^r)$ be a finite complex reflection group. We show that when $G$ is irreducible, apart from the exception $G=\Sgot_6$, as well as for a large class of non-irreducible groups, any automorphism of $G$ is the product of a central automorphism and of an automorphism which preserves the reflections. We show further that an automorphism which preserves the reflections is the product of an element of $N_{\GL(\BC^r)}(G)$ and of a "Galois" automorphism: we show that $\Gal(K/\BQ)$, where $K$ is the field of definition of $G$, injects into the group of outer automorphisms of $G$, and …
The Poisson boundary of a finite direct product of affine automorphism groups of homogeneous trees is considered. The Poisson boundary is shown to be a product of ends of trees with a hitting measure for spread-out, aperiodic measures of finite first moment whose closed support generates a subgroup which is not fully exceptional. The Poisson boundary of a semi-direct product associated with every automorphism $α$ and tidy compact open subgroup $V$ in a locally compact, totally disconnected group $G$ is also shown to be the space of ends of the tree with the hitting measure under similar assump…
Let $K$ be a field of characteristic different from 2 and let $C$ be an octonion algebra over $K$. We show that there is a seven-dimensional subspace of $7\times 7$ skew-symmetric matrices over $K$ which is invariant under the automorphism group of $C$. This subspace consists of elements of rank 6 when $C$ is a division algebra, and elements of rank 4 and 6 when $C$ is a split algebra. In the latter case, the automorphism group is the exceptional group $G_2(K)$.
In this paper, we study a flag complex which is naturally associated to the Thurston theory of surface diffeomorphisms for compact connected orientable surfaces with boundary. The various pieces of the Thurston decomposition of a surface diffeomorphism, thick domains and annular or thin domains, fit into this flag complex, which we call the complex of domains. The main result of this paper is a computation of the group of automorphisms of this complex. Unlike the complex of curves, introduced by Harvey, for which, for all but a finite number of exceptional surfaces, by the works of Ivanov, Kor…
We show that the sporadic simple group $\M(22)$, the exceptional group of Lie type ${}^2\E_6(2)$ and their automorphism groups are uniquely determined by the approximate structure of the centralizer of an element of order 3 together with some information about the fusion of this element in the group.
We discuss a Clifford algebra framework for discrete symmetry groups (such as reflection, Coxeter, conformal and modular groups), leading to a surprising number of new results. Clifford algebras allow for a particularly simple description of reflections via `sandwiching'. This extends to a description of orthogonal transformations in general by means of `sandwiching' with Clifford algebra multivectors, since all orthogonal transformations can be written as products of reflections by the Cartan-Dieudonné theorem. We begin by viewing the largest non-crystallographic reflection/Coxeter group $H_4…
Let $\boldsymbol{G}$ be an algebraic group of exceptional Lie type in characteristic $p$, $G=\boldsymbol{G}^σ$ its fixed-point subgroup under the action of a Steinberg endomorphism $σ$, and $\overline{G}$ an almost simple group with socle $G$. A maximal subgroup $M<\overline{G}$ is called non-generic if it is almost simple and its socle is not isomorphic to a group of Lie type in characteristic $p$. A finite subgroup $H$ of $\boldsymbol{G}$ is Lie primitive if it does not lie in any proper closed positive-dimensional subgroup of $\boldsymbol{G}$; it is Lie imprimitive if it lies in a positive-…
We classify $N{=}1$ SVOAs with no free fermions and with bosonic subalgebra a simply connected WZW algebra which is not of type $\mathrm{E}$. The latter restriction makes the classification tractable; the former restriction implies that the $N{=}1$ automorphism groups of the resulting SVOAs are finite. We discover two infinite families and nine exceptional examples. The exceptions are all related to the Leech lattice: their automorphism groups are the larger groups in the Suzuki chain ($\mathrm{Co}_1$, $\mathrm{Suz}{:}2$, $\mathrm{G}_2(4){:}2$, $\mathrm{J}_2{:}2$, $\mathrm{U}_3(3){:}2$) and ce…
