DMS's conjecture on intervals of irredundant base cardinalities for primitive groups

Let GG be a finite permutation group acting on a domain Ω\Omega. An irredundant base is an ordered sequence (ω1,,ω)(\omega_1,\ldots,\omega_\ell) whose associated stabilizer chain

GGω1Gω1,ω2Gω1,ω2,,ω=1G\ge G_{\omega_1}\ge G_{\omega_1,\omega_2}\ge \cdots \ge G_{\omega_1,\omega_2,\ldots,\omega_\ell}=1

has all inclusions strict, and define

I(G,Ω)={Nthere exists an irredundant base of length }.\mathcal{I}(G,\Omega)=\{\ell\in\mathbb{N}\mid \text{there exists an irredundant base of length }\ell\}.

DMS's conjecture. There exists an interval XX of positive integers, not containing 11, such that no primitive group GG acting on any domain Ω\Omega satisfies

I(G,Ω)=X.\mathcal{I}(G,\Omega)=X.

Cameron proved that I(G,Ω)\mathcal{I}(G,\Omega) is always an interval, while previous work established that every interval of natural numbers not containing 11 can be realized by a finite transitive permutation group. The conjecture asserts that at least one such interval is impossible for primitive groups, distinguishing the primitive case from the transitive imprimitive constructions.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Fabio Mastrogiacomo, “Cardinalities of irredundant bases of finite primitive groups”, arXiv:2407.20849 (2024).

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