nLab wreath product of groups

For disambiguation see at wreath product.

Contents

Definition

Definition

Given (discrete) groups H,GGrp(Set)H, G \in Grp(Set) and a G-set SS, the wreath product group

H SGH SG H \wr_S G \;\; \coloneqq \;\; H^S \rtimes G

is the semidirect product group of

  1. the direct product group H SH^S of |S|{\vert S \vert} copies of HH

  2. with GG, acting on H SH^S by permutation of factors:

    g((h s) sS)(h g 1(s)) sS. g \big((h_s)_{s \in S}\big) \;\coloneqq\; \big(h_{g^{-1}(s)}\big)_{s \in S} \,.

(cf. BMMN 2006, Def. 8.1, see also James & Kerber 1984 §4.1)

Remark

(Notation) Other notation for “H SGH \wr_S G” is “HWr SGH Wr_S G” or “Hwr SGH wr_S G”.

Often the choice of GG-set SS is notationally suppressed, writing instead “HGH \wr G”, etc.

But beware that conventions differ:

Some authors understand by default the regular action of GG on its underlying set.

But when G=Sym(n)G = Sym(n) is a symmetric group, then often its defining action on {1,,n}\{1, \cdots, n\} is understood (cf. Ex. below). In this case James & Kerber 1984 §4.2 speak of complete monomial groups over HH.

Examples

Example

The dihedral group Dih(4)Dih(4) of order 24=82\cdot 4=8 is the wreath product C 2C 2C_2 \wr C_2 of C 2 C_2 with itself (in this sense of regular representations).

More generally:

Example

The symmetry group of the nn-dimensional hypercube is C 2Sym(n)C_2 \wr Sym(n).

Example

The Sylow- p p -subgroups P nP_n of the symmetric groups Sym(n)Sym(n) can be recursively described as the wreath product C pP aC_p \wr P_a where C pC_p is the cyclic group of order pp and n=ap+rn = a p+r with 0rp0\leq r \lneq p.

Example

The Sylow- \ell -subgroups of GL n ( q ) GL_n(q) for gcd ( q , ) = 1 gcd(q,\ell)=1 can recursively be described as a wreath product of the Sylow-\ell-subgroup of a strictly smaller GL m(q)GL_{m}(q) and a Sylow-\ell-subgroups of a suitable symmetric group.

Example

For a connected topological space XX, the homotopy quotient of its nn-fold product topological space by the symmetric group Sym(n)Sym(n) acting by permutation of factors, hence the Borel construction

X nSym(n)(X n×ESym(n))/Sym(n), X^n \sslash Sym(n) \;\; \simeq \;\; \big( X^n \times E Sym(n) \big) / Sym(n) \,,

has as fundamental group the wreath product with the fundamental group of XX:

π 1(X nSym(n))π 1(X)Sym(n). \pi_1\big( X^n \sslash Sym(n) \big) \;\simeq\; \pi_1(X) \wr Sym(n) \,.

(cf. MO:a/867292)

Example

A framed braid group is the wreath product with the integers \mathbb{Z} of a plain braid group.

Properties

General

Remark

(as a permutation group)
If both HSym(X)H \subset Sym(X) and GSym(Y)G \subset Sym(Y) are presented as permutation groups, then the wreath product is itself a permutation group, acting on the Cartesian product set X×YX \times Y by letting GG act trivially on the first and naturally on the second factor and letting H YH^Y act on X×YX\times Y such that the yy-th component of H YH^Y permutes X×{y}X\times\{y\} naturally and fixes everything else pointwise.

(e.g. Holland 1989)

Irreducible representations

Let GG be a finite group. Denote by Irr(G){[ρ i]} iIIrr(G) \simeq \big\{ [\rho_i] \big\}_{i \in I} the set of isomorphism classes of its irreducible representations.

For nn \in \mathbb{N} and (n i) iI(n_i \in \mathbb{N})_{i \in I} an II-partition, in that n= in in = \sum_i n_i, write

Sym (n) iISym n iSym n Sym_{(n)} \;\coloneqq\; \textstyle{\prod_{i \in I}} Sym_{n_i} \;\; \subset \;\; Sym_n

There is an evident linear representation of

iI(GSym n i)GSym (n)GSym n \textstyle{\prod_{i \in I}} \big( G \wr Sym_{n_i} \big) \;\; \simeq \;\; G \wr Sym_{(n)} \;\;\subset\;\; G \wr Sym_n

on

(1)ρiIρ i n iRep(GSym (n)), \rho \;\coloneqq\; \displaystyle{\underset{i \in I}{\boxtimes}} \rho_i^{\boxtimes_{n_i}} \;\;\; \in \;\; Rep(G \wr Sym_{(n)}) \,,

where the subgroup G nGSym (n)G^n \subset G \wr Sym_{(n)} acts according to the external tensor product of representations, and the subgroup Sym (n)Sym_{(n)} acts by permutation of tensor factors.

The irreps σ\sigma of the direct product group Sym (n)Sym_{(n)} are (see there) of the form

(2)σiIσ j(i), \sigma \;\simeq\; \underset{i \in I}{\boxtimes} \sigma_{j(i)} \,,

for σ j(i)\sigma_{j(i)} an irrep of the symmetric group Sym n iSym_{n_i}. We may canonically regard σ\sigma as a representation of GSym (n)Sym (n)G \wr Sym_{(n)} \twoheadrightarrow Sym_{(n)}.

Theorem

For GG a finite group and nn \in \mathbb{N}, the irreducible representations of the wreath product group GSym nG \wr Sym_n are, up to isomorphism, exactly the induced representations along GSym (n)GSym nG \wr Sym_{(n)} \hookrightarrow G \wr Sym_n of the tensor products of representations ρ\rho (1) for (n)(n) an II-partition as above, with irreps σ\sigma (2) of Sym (n)Sym_{(n)}:

(3)[GSym n] [GSym (n)]((iIρ i n i)σ). \mathbb{C}\big[ G \wr Sym_n \big] \otimes_{ \mathbb{C}\big[ G \wr Sym_{(n)} \big] } \bigg( \Big( \displaystyle{\underset{i \in I}{\boxtimes}} \rho_i^{\boxtimes_{n_i}} \Big) \otimes \sigma \bigg) \,.

This is a digest of James & Kerber 1984 Thm. 4.3.34, for the special case that their “HH” is all of H=Sym nH = Sym_n. For proper subgroups HSym nH \subset Sym_n the analogous statement holds for the irreps of GHG \wr H, with Sym (n)Sym_{(n)} above replaced throughout by Sym (n)HSym_{(n)} \cap H.

Example

(Irreps of C kSym 3C_k \wr Sym_3)

For k >0k \in \mathbb{N}_{\gt 0} denote by C kC_k the cyclic group of order kk. Its complex irreps 1 p\mathbf{1}_{p} are all 1-dimensional, labeled by pC kp \in C_k: The element [1]C k[1] \in C_k acts on 1 p\mathbf{1}_p as multiplication with e 2πipke^{2 \pi \mathrm{i} \tfrac{p}{k}}.

The irreps of Sym 3Sym_3 are the trivial representation 1\mathbf{1}, the sign representation 1 sgn\mathbf{1}_{sgn} and the standard representation 2\mathbf{2}.

The irreps of C pSym 3C_p \wr Sym_3 according to Thm. may be regarded as falling into 3 classes, according to the nature of the corresponding partition:

Case 1 – Partition involves a single irrep 1 p\mathbf{1}_p. In this case Sym (3)Sym 3Sym_{(3)} \simeq Sym_3 and the formula (3) produces the representations

1 p 3σRep(C pSym 3) \mathbf{1}_{p}^{\boxtimes_3} \otimes \sigma \;\; \in \;\; Rep(C_p \wr Sym_3)

for pC pp \in C_p and σ{1,1 sgn,2}\sigma \in \big\{\mathbf{1}, \mathbf{1}_{sgn}, \mathbf{2}\big\}.

Case 2 – Partition involves two distinct irreps, 1 p\mathbf{1}_p and 1 p\mathbf{1}_{p'}. In this case Sym (3)=1×Sym 2Sym 2Sym_{(3)} = 1 \times Sym_2 \simeq Sym_2 and the formula (3) produces

[C kSym 3] [C k×(C kSym 2)]((1 p1 p 2)σ) \mathbb{C}\big[ C_k \wr Sym_3 \big] \otimes_{ \mathbb{C}\big[ C_k \times (C_k \wr Sym_2) \big] } \Big( \big( \mathbf{1}_{p} \boxtimes \mathbf{1}_{p'}^{\boxtimes_2} \big) \otimes \sigma \Big)

for ppC kp \neq p' \in C_k and σ{1,1 sgn}\sigma \in \big\{\mathbf{1}, \mathbf{1}_{sgn}\big\}.

Case 3 – Partition involves three distinct irreps, 1 p 1,1 p 2,1 p 3\mathbf{1}_{p_1}, \mathbf{1}_{p_2}, \mathbf{1}_{p_3}. In this case Sym (3)1×1×11Sym_{(3)} \simeq 1 \times 1 \times 1 \simeq 1 and the formula (3) produces

[C kSym 3] [C k 3](1 p 11 p 21 p 3) \mathbb{C}\big[ C_k \wr Sym_3 \big] \otimes_{ \mathbb{C}\big[ C_k^3 \big] } \big( \mathbf{1}_{p_1} \boxtimes \mathbf{1}_{p_2} \boxtimes \mathbf{1}_{p_3} \big)

for p iC kp_i \in C_k pairwise distinct.


References

Monographs:

  • Meenaxi Bhattacharjee, Dugald Macpherson, Rögnvaldur G. Möller, Peter M. Neumann: Wreath products, Chapter 8 of: Notes on Infinite Permutation Groups, Lecture Notes in Mathematics 1698, Springer (2006) 67-76 [doi:10.1007/BFb0092558]

See also:

In the generality of semigroups:

Special cases and applications:

On the representation theory of wreath products with symmetric groups:

  • Gordon D. James, Adalbert Kerber: Representations of Wreath Products, Chapter 4 of: The Representation Theory of the Symmetric Group, Cambridge University Press (1984) [doi:10.1017/CBO9781107340732]

  • I. A. Pushkarev: On the representation theory of wreath products of finite groups and symmetric groups, Journal of Mathematical Sciences, 96 (1999) 3590–3599 [doi:10.1007/BF02175835]

    originally in: Representation theory, dynamical systems, combinatorial and algorithmic methods. Part II, Zap. Nauchn. Sem. POMI 240, POMI, St. Petersburg (1997) 229–244 [mathnet:znsl475]

On wreath products of a cyclic with a symmetric group as analogs of (anyon) braid groups in dimension >2\gt 2:

On wreath products with braid groups (cf. also framed braid group):

  • Semidirect products with braid groups and type F F_\infty [MO:q/179104]
category: algebra

Last revised on April 19, 2025 at 10:54:59. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.