Skip to main content
Log in

Symmetric groups and expander graphs

  • Published:
Inventiones mathematicae Aims and scope

Abstract

We construct explicit generating sets S n and \(\tilde{S}_{n}\) of the alternating and the symmetric groups, which turn the Cayley graphs \(\mathcal{C}(\text{Alt}(n), S_{n})\) and \(\mathcal{C}(\text{Sym}(n), \tilde{S}_{n})\) into a family of bounded degree expanders for all n.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Abért, M.: Symmetric groups as products of abelian subgroups. Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 34(4), 451–456 (2002)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. Alon, N., Lubotzky, A., Wigderson, A.: Semi-direct product in groups and zig-zag product in graphs: connections and applications (extended abstract). In: 42nd IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (Las Vegas, NV, 2001), pp. 630–637. IEEE Computer Soc., Los Alamitos, CA (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Babai, L., Hetyei, G., Kantor, W.M., Lubotzky, A., Seress, Á.: On the diameter of finite groups. In: 31st Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, vols. I, II (St. Louis, MO, 1990), pp. 857–865. IEEE Comput. Soc. Press, Los Alamitos, CA (1990)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  4. Babai, L., Kantor, W.M., Lubotzky, A.: Small-diameter Cayley graphs for finite simple groups. Eur. J. Comb. 10(6), 507–522 (1989)

    MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  5. Bacher, R., de la Harpe, P.: Exact values of Kazhdan constants for some finite groups. J. Algebra (163), 495–515 (1994)

  6. Gilman, R.: Finite quotients of the automorphism group of a free group. Can. J. Math. 29(3), 541–551 (1977)

    MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  7. James, G., Kerber, A.: The Representation Theory of the Symmetric Group. Encycl. Math. Appl., vol. 16. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass. (1981)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. James, G.D.: The Representation Theory of the Symmetric Groups. Lect. Notes Math., vol. 682. Springer, Berlin (1978)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. Kassabov, M.: Universal lattices and unbounded rank expanders. To appear in Invent. Math., DOI 10.1007/s00222-007-0064-z

  10. Kassabov, M.: Kazhdan constants for SLn(ℤ). Int. J. Algebra Comput. 15(5–6), 971–995 (2005)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  11. Kassabov, M.: Symmetric groups and expanders. Electron. Res. Announc. Am. Math. Soc. 11, 47–56 (2005) (electronic)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  12. Kassabov, M., Lubotzky, A., Nikolov, N.: Finite simple groups and expanders. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103(16), 6116–6119 (2006)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  13. Kassabov, M., Nikolov, N.: Cartesian products as profinite completions. Int. Math. Res. Not. 2006, Art. ID 72947, 17pp. (2006)

  14. Kassabov, M., Riley, T.R.: Diameters of Cayley graphs of SL n (ℤ/kℤ). Eur. J. Comb., arXiv: math.GR/0502221

  15. Klawe, M.: Limitations on explicit constructions of expanding graphs. SIAM J. Comput. 13(1), 156–166 (1984)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  16. Lubotzky, A.: Discrete groups, Expanding Graphs and Invariant Measures. Prog. Math., vol. 125. Birkhäuser, Basel (1994)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  17. Lubotzky, A.: Cayley graphs: eigenvalues, expanders and random walks. In: Surveys in Combinatorics, 1995 (Stirling), Lond. Math. Soc. Lect. Note Ser., vol. 218, pp. 155–189. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Lubotzky, A., Pak, I.: The product replacement algorithm and Kazhdan’s property (T). J. Am. Math. Soc. 14(2), 347–363 (2001) (electronic)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  19. Lubotzky, A., Weiss, B.: Groups and expanders. In: Expanding Graphs (Princeton, NJ, 1992), DIMACS, Ser. Discrete Math. Theor. Comput. Sci., vol. 10, pp. 95–109. Am. Math. Soc., Providence, RI (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Lubotzky, A., Żuk, A.: On Property τ. (in preparation)

  21. Margulis, G.A.: Explicit constructions of expanders. Probl. Peredachi Inf. 9(4), 71–80 (1973)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  22. Meshulam, R., Wigderson, A.: Expanders in group algebras. Combinatorica 24(4), 659–680 (2004)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  23. Reingold, O., Vadhan, S., Wigderson, A.: Entropy waves, the zig-zag graph product, and new constant-degree expanders and extractors (extended abstract). In: 41st Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (Redondo Beach, CA, 2000), pp. 3–13. IEEE Comput. Soc. Press, Los Alamitos, CA (2000)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  24. Roichman, Y.: Upper bound on the characters of the symmetric groups. Invent. Math. 125(3), 451–485 (1996)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  25. Roichman, Y.: Expansion properties of Cayley graphs of the alternating groups. J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 79(2), 281–297 (1997)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  26. Rozenman, E., Shalev, A., Wigderson, A.: A new family of Cayley expanders (?). In: Proceedings of the 36th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, pp. 445–454. ACM, New York (2004) (electronic)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Rozenman, E., Shalev, A., Wigderson, A.: Iterative construction of Cayley expander graphs. Theory Comput. 2, 91–120 (2006)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  28. Shalom, Y.: Bounded generation and Kazhdan’s property (T). Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 90, 145–168 (1999)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Martin Kassabov.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kassabov, M. Symmetric groups and expander graphs. Invent. math. 170, 327–354 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00222-007-0065-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00222-007-0065-y

Keywords

Navigation