Dear GAP-Forum,
in Chapter 35, Section 5 the GAP4-manual says:
> * ConjugatorAutomorphism( G, g ) O
>
> creates for g in the same Family as the elements of G
> the automorphism of G defined by h |--> h^{elm} for all h\in G .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reading these lines I guess that 'ConjugatorAutomorphism' was imple-
mented to sort of generalize the function 'InnerAutomorphism': The
latter one only provides access to automorphisms of a group G which
are induced by elements of G; by means of the first one you can also
construct "conjugations" by elements of e. g. a supergroup of G.
Of course, the mapping h |--> h^g, for g \in S, S a supergroup of G,
is an automorphism of G if and only if G is invariant under conjuga-
tion by g.
Surprisingly, the manual does not keep its readers aware of this fact
at all, and --- confer the example below --- 'ConjugatorAutomorphism'
does not even give you a warning let alone an error message, when you
try to induce an automorphism from an element which violates the
invariance condition stated above:
gap> G := Group( [ (1,2,3,4) ] ); Group([ (1,2,3,4) ]) gap> phi := ConjugatorAutomorphism( G, (1,2) ); ^(1,2) gap> eltsG := Elements( G ); [ (), (1,2,3,4), (1,3)(2,4), (1,4,3,2) ] gap> List(eltsG, elt -> elt^phi); [ (), (1,3,4,2), (1,4)(2,3), (1,2,4,3) ] gap> IsConjugatorAutomorphism(phi); true gap>
Would the function 'ConjugatorAutomorphism' not better be called 'Con-
jugatorISOmorphism'? Or is there anything I've just misunderstood?
Thanks in advance,
Mathias
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Dipl.-Math. Mathias Kratzer | I_nstitute for E-Mail: kratzer@exp-math.uni-essen.de | E_xperimental Phone : +49-201-183-7680 | M_athematics Ellernstr. 29 Visit : IEM, Room 206 | D-45326 ESSEN