[Math] Find Sylow 7-Subgroup of S7 and how many are there

abstract-algebrafinite-groupsgroup-theorysylow-theory

  • Find a Sylow 7-subgroup of $S_7$. How many Sylow 7-subgroups of $S_7$ are there?

$|S_7|=7!= 7\cdot 6^2 \cdot 5 \cdot 2^2 $

$n_7 \equiv $ 1(mod 7)

  • Find a Sylow 3-subgroup of $S_6$. How many Sylow 3-subgroups of $S_6$ are there?

$|S_6|=6!=3^2 \cdot 5 \cdot 2^4 $

So all Sylow 3-subgroups of $S_6$ are subgroups of order $3^2$.

Could someone provide a step by step answer of one of these questions, so I can attempt to do the other one? I've begun both but I'm not sure how to continue.

Best Answer

So a Sylow 7-subgroup of $|S_7|$ is going to have order 7, by the prime decomposition you write down in your question.

Any group of prime order is cyclic, so all the Sylow subgroups are cyclic. Conversely, if you have a subgroup of order 7 then it's always going to be Sylow.

Therefore, you just need to identify the subgroups that are isomorphic to $C_7$. For this it suffices to identify all the elements of order 7, that is, the 7-cycles.

There are $7!/7 = 6!$ of these, and since each copy of $C_7$ has exactly one element not of order 7 (and no element of order 7 appears in two different copies of $C_7$) there are $6!/6 = 5!$ subgroups of order 7.

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