Can every countable locally-finite group be embedded into $S_\infty$

abstract-algebragroup-theoryinfinite-groupspermutationssymmetric-groups

Let's define $S_\infty$ as the group of all permutations of $\mathbb{N}$ with finite support.

It is not hard to see, that every finite group can be embedded in $S_\infty$. That is because any finite group $G$ can be embedded into $S_{|G|}$ by Cayley Theorem and $S_{n} \cong \{\sigma \in S_\infty|\sigma(m)=m \forall m > n\}$.

On the other hand, all subgroups of $S_\infty$ are locally-finite, because $S_\infty$ is locally-finite itself. Indeed, if we look at $\sigma_1, … , \sigma_n \subset S_\infty$ with respective finite supports $S_1, … , S_n$, then $\langle \sigma_1, … , \sigma_n \rangle \leq S_{|S_1 \cup … \cup S_n|}$.

I wonder whether every countable locally-finite group can be embedded into $S_\infty$. The problem is, that even if they are, that statement can not be proved using the construction from Cayley theorem, because permutations arising from action of infinite group upon itself by left multiplications do not generally have finite support.

Best Answer

I don't think that the Prüfer $p$-group $C_{p^\infty}$ for a prime $p$, which has presentation $$\left\langle x_i\ (i \in {\mathbb Z_{> 0}}) \mid x_1^p=1,\,x_i^p = x_{i-1}\ (i > 1)\right\rangle,$$ can be embedded into $S_{\infty}$.

Suppose, for a contradiction that there were such an embedding. Then, since $x_i$ has order $p^i$, its image must have at least one orbit of length $p^i$. But then the images of $x_j$ must move at least $p^i$ points for all $j \le i$.

Since this is true for all $i>0$, the images of the $x_i$ in an embedding cannot have finite support, contradiction.

Related Question