SEMINAR: Groups and Combinatorics Seminar, Subgroup covering numbers of symmetric groups

Eric Swartz (UWA)

will speak on

Subgroup covering numbers of symmetric groups

at 3pm Friday February the 28th in Weatherburn Lecture Theatre.

Abstract:

Let G be a group. The subgroup covering number of G is defined to be the least integer m such that G is equal to the set theoretic union of m proper subgroups of G. In 2005, Maroti determined the subgroup covering number for the symmetric group S_n, when n > 9 is odd, and he provided bounds for sufficiently large even values of n. I will discuss these previous results, joint work with Luise-Charlotte Kappe and Daniela Nikolova towards filling in the gap for small values of n, and ongoing work to determine the exact value for large even values of n.