Group action of direct product group $G \times H$ when groups $G$ and $H$ do not commute

direct-productgroup-actionsgroup-theory

I'm studying direct product groups actions. Usually, for a group $G \times H$ acting on a set $X$ one takes the group action $\cdot_{G \times H}$ to be the natural $(g \times h)(x) = g \cdot_G (h \cdot_H x)$ for a $(g,h) \in G \times H$ and $x \in X$. However, it turns out that this is well defined only if actions of $G$ and $H$ commute. See the question on If groups $G$ and $H$ act on $X$, does $G \times H$ act on $X$?. Hence, I'm interested in situations wherein that hypothesis doesn't hold, i.e., actions of $G$ and $H$ do not commute.

Assume groups $G$ and $H$ act on set $X$ and that they do not commute.

What could be a non-natural action of direct product group $G \times H$ on $X$ (other than the trivial one)?
(Note that the action is not the natural $(g \times h) \cdot x = g \cdot (h \cdot x)$ since $G$ and $H$ do not commute which was shown to be sufficient and necessary in 1.)

Specifically, how could one combine the results of group actions of the elements $g$ and $h$? (The natural action uses composition).

Thank you

Best Answer

If $G$ and $H$ act on $X$ and their actions don't commute, then there's no reason to expect $G \times H$ to act on $X$. Here's an explicit counterexample, followed by a more abstract view that lets you guess the correct answer (so that you can focus on looking for a counterexample rather than a proof).

First, let $G = \mathbb{Z}/2 = \langle \sigma | \sigma^2 \rangle$ and $H = \mathbb{Z}/3 = \langle \tau \mid \tau^3 \rangle$. Then both of these groups act on $X = \{1,2,3\}$, by sending $\sigma$ to the permutation $(1 \ 2)$ and $\tau$ to the permutation $(1 \ 2 \ 3)$. I'll let you check that these really define actions.

Now we ask about $G \times H = \mathbb{Z}/2 \times \mathbb{Z}/3$. It's not hard to check that $G \times H$ has no faithful action on $X$, since $\text{Aut}_X = \mathfrak{S}_3$ (the symmetric group on $3$ letters) has $6$ elements. So $G \times H$ surely doesn't act faithfully. Indeed, by comparing the subgroups of $\mathfrak{S}_3$ to the quotients of $G \times H$ (using the first isomorphism theorem one can show that the only actions${}^1$ of $G \times H$ on $X$ in this case are $(g,h) \cdot x = g \cdot x$ or $(g,h) \cdot x = h \cdot x$! We must simply ignore one of the factors! So there is no action of $G \times H$ that uses the information from both $G$ and $H$.


Now, how could we have seen this coming? An action of $G$ on $X$ can similarly be described as a group homomorphism $G \to \text{Aut}_X$. So your question can be rephrased as "given two homomorphisms $G \to \text{Aut}_X$ and $H \to \text{Aut}_X$ whose images don't commute in $\text{Aut}_X$, is there a group homomorphism $G \times H \to \text{Aut}_X$.

This should ring as false to you. After all, "$G \times H$" is the free way to glue $G$ and $H$ together assuming they commute! In general it's very hard to control maps out of $G \times H$ (here knowing some category theory can also help guide your intuition). So our hope is to search for a counterexample.

The easiest thing to do is to take these maps $G \to \text{Aut}_X$ and $H \to \text{Aut}_X$ to be inclusions, so that we actually have subgroups $G \leq \text{Aut}_X$ and $H \leq \text{Aut}_X$. Then the dream is to find a group $\text{Aut}_X$ with two subgroups $G$ and $H$ (which don't commute in $\text{Aut}_X$) so that $G \times H$ has no interesting homomorphisms into $\text{Aut}_X$. From doing lots of these kinds of problems, I knew that $G = \mathbb{Z}/2$, $H = \mathbb{Z}/3$, and $\text{Aut}_X = \mathfrak{S}_3 = \text{Aut}_{\{1,2,3\}}$ would work. However, this is also one of the first examples you might think to try, since $\mathfrak{S}_3$ is the smallest nonabelian group! So it's the first place a counterexample could possibly be.


As a last aside, I'll say that you can "fix this". Instead of working with the product $G \times H$, you could work with the coproduct (also sometimes called the free product) $G \ast H$. This is the construction that glues two groups together if we don't assume that their images commute! Indeed, it's defined by the property that "for any two homomorphisms $\varphi: G \to K$ and $\psi: H \to K$, there is a unique homomorphism $\varphi \ast \psi : G \ast H \to K$ which "glues $\varphi$ and $\psi$ together".

In this way, if $G$ and $H$ act on $X$ (that is, if we have homomorphisms $G \to \text{Aut}_X$ and $H \to \text{Aut}_X$) then this property guarantees we have a homomorphism $G \ast H \to \text{Aut}_X$ extending the previous homomorphisms. That is, it guarantees an interesting action of $G \ast H$ on $X$ in way that uses the information of the $G$ and $H$ actions.


I hope this helps ^_^


${}^1$: This is a slight fib. We can also have actions like $(g,h) \cdot x = g^{-1} \cdot x$, but these won't exist for other choices of $G$ and $H$, and also won't solve your problem.

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