Maths - Bicrossed Product

Direct Product

Perhaps the simplest way to combine (multiply) two sets (and therefore groups) is to use the Cartesian product as explained on this page. This product produces a set from the product:

g×h = {g, h}

So the result of this product is a different type of entity than the elements being multiplied, so the multiplication is not closed, and therefore does not represent a group. The external product makes this into a group because the inputs to the multiplication are also sets:

{y,z}&22C8;{y',z' } = {y(z • y'),zy' z'}

where:

Example C2×C3

In order to try to understand this product of two groups lets try multiplying two very simple groups together, the simplest groups I can think of are C2 and C3.

C2

generator cayley graph table permutation representation
<m | m²> c2 graph
1 m
m 1
< ( 1 2 ) >
0 1
1 0

C3

generator cayley graph table permutation representation
<r | r³> c3 graph
1 r
r 1
1 r
< ( 1 2 3 ) >
0 0 1
1 0 0
0 1 0

direct product C3 × C2

This gives :

generator cayley graph table
<m,r | m²,r³,rm=mr> c3c2 graph
{1,1} {r,1} {r²,1} {1,m} {r,m} {r²,m}
{r,1} {r²,1} {1,1} {r,m} {r²,m} {1,m}
{r²,1} {1,1} {r,1} {r²,m} {1,m} {r,m}
{1,m} {r,m} {r²,m} {1,1} {r,1} {r²,1}
{r,m} {r²,m} {1,m} {r,1} {r²,1} {1,1}
{r²,m} {1,m} {r,m} {r²,1} {1,1} {r,1}
permutation representation  
<(1 2 3)(4 5 6),(1 4)(2 5)(3 6)>
[
0 0 1 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 1
0 0 0 1 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 0
,
0 0 0 1 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 0
0 0 0 0 0 1
1 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 0 0
]

Note that, in addition to applying both the generators and constrains for the original groups we have had to apply an additional constraint: rm=mr. If we had not done this we would have the infinite free product.

Generating a Bicrossed Product using a Program

We can use a computer program to generate these groups, here I have used Axiom/FriCAS which is described here.

 

 


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