The Number of Symmetric Colorings of the Quaternion Group

We compute the number of symmetric r-colorings and the number of equivalence classes of symmetric r-colorings of the quaternion group.

The symmetry of a group G with respect to an element g ∈ G is the mapping This is an old notion, which can be found in the book [1].And it is a very natural one, since where λ g : G x → gx ∈ G, ρ g : G x → xg ∈ G, and ι : G x → x −1 ∈ G are the left translation, the right translation, and the inversion, respectively.Indeed, it follows from λ g (x) = gx that λ −1 g (gx) = x, so λ −1 g (x) = g −1 x.Consequently, λ −1 g = λ g −1 .Similarly, ρ −1 g = ρ g −1 .Then Various aspects of symmetries on groups had been studied in [2].Now let G be a finite group and let r ∈ N.An r-coloring of G is any mapping χ : G → {1, . . ., r}.
coloring is symmetric if it is invariant under some symmetry.Define the equivalence relation ∼ on the set of all r-colorings of G by χ ∼ ϕ if and only if there is g ∈ G such that χ(xg −1 ) = ϕ(x) for all x ∈ G.
That is, colorings are equivalent if one of them can be obtain from the other by a right translation.
Note that in the case of a finite cyclic group Z n these notions have a very simple geometric illustration.Identifying Z n with the vertices of a regular n-gon we obtain that a coloring is symmetric if it is invariant with respect to some mirror symmetry with an axis crossing the center of the polygon and one of its vertices.
Colorings are equivalent if one of them can be obtained from the other by rotating about the center of the polygon.
Obviously, the number of all r-colorings of G is r |G| .Applying Burnside's Lemma [3, I, §3] shows that the number of equivalence classes of r-colorings of G is equal to where g is the subgroup generated by g.However, counting symmetric r-colorings and equivalence classes of symmetric r-colorings of G turned out to be quite a difficult question.
Let S r (G) denote the set of symmetric r-colorings of G.In [4] it was shown that if G is Abelian, then and (1) Here, X runs over subgroups of G, Y over subgroups of X, µ(Y, X) is the Möbius function of the lattice of subgroups of G, and Given a finite partially ordered set, the Möbius function is defined as follows: See [3,IV] for more information about the Möbius function.
In the case of Z n formulas 1, 2 were reduced to the following elementary ones [4]: If n = 2 l m, where l ≥ 1 and m is odd, then As usual, p denotes a prime number.
Recently, an approach for computing |S r (G)| and |S r (G)/ ∼ | in the case of an arbitrary finite group G has been found [5].The approach is based on constructing the partially ordered set of so called optimal partitions of G.
Given a partition π of G, the stabilizer and the center of π are defined by St(π) = {g ∈ G : for every x ∈ G, x and xg −1 belong to the same cell of π} and Z(π) = {g ∈ G : for every x ∈ G, x and gx −1 g belong to the same cell of π}.
St(π) is a subgroup of G and Z(π) is a union of left cosets of G modulo St(π).Furthermore, if e ∈ Z(π), then Z(π) is also a union of right cosets of G modulo St(π) and for every a ∈ Z(π), a ⊆ Z(π).We say that a partition π of G is optimal if e ∈ Z(π) and for every partition π of G with St(π ) = St(π) and Z(π ) = Z(π), one has π ≤ π .The latter means that every cell of π is contained in some cell of π , or equivalently, the equivalence corresponding to π is contained in that of π .The partially ordered set of optimal partitions of G can be naturally identified with the partially ordered set of pairs (A, B) of subsets of G such that A = St(π) and B = Z(π) for some partition π of G with e ∈ Z(π).For every partition π, we write |π| to denote the number of cells of π.
In [5] it was shown that for every finite group G and r ∈ N, where P is the partially ordered set of optimal partitions of G.
The partially ordered set of optimal partitions π of G together with parameters |St(π)|, |Z(π)| and |π| can be constructed by starting with the finest optimal partition {{x, x −1 } : x ∈ G} and using the following fact: Let π be an optimal partition of G and let A ⊆ G. Let π 1 be the finest partition of G such that π ≤ π 1 and A ⊆ St(π 1 ), and let π 2 be the finest partition of G such that π ≤ π 2 and A ⊆ Z(π 2 ).Then the partitions π 1 and π 2 are also optimal.
In this note we compute explicitly the numbers |S r (Q)| and |S r (Q)/ ∼ | where Q = {±1, ±i, ±j, ±k} is the quaternion group.Finally, by formulas 3, 4, we obtain that Thus, we have showed that We conclude this note with the list of all symmetric 2-colorings of Q, up to equivalence.