Elements of a prime order

Algebra Level 3

Let G be a finite group of order 20. How many elements of G are of order 5?


The answer is 4.

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2 solutions

Kushal Bose
Dec 22, 2016

An element a a has order n n then a k a^k has order a k = n g c d ( n , k ) |a^k|=\dfrac{n}{gcd(n,k)}

So here a = 5 |a|=5 so 5 g c d ( 5 , k ) = 5 g c d ( 5 , k ) = 1 k = 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 \dfrac{5}{gcd(5,k)}=5 \implies gcd(5,k)=1 \implies k=1,2,3,4

There are four elements a , a 2 , a 3 , a 4 a,a^2,a^3,a^4 has order 5 5

Looking back on it, I'm not sure if you can assume |a^k| = 5. If so, could you explain why?

John Wroblewski - 3 years, 10 months ago

How do we know that there exists at least one element (a) of order 5? Basically, is zero also a possible answer to this question, depending on the group?

Saajid Chowdhury - 1 month, 2 weeks ago
John Wroblewski
Dec 20, 2016

We know from Sylow's Theorem that n 5 1 m o d 5 n_{5} \equiv 1 \mod 5 . This gives that n 5 { 1 + 5 n n N } n_{5} \in \{1 + 5n | n \in \mathbb{N}\} . As G = 20 |G| = 20 , we get that: n 5 > 1 G 30 n_{5} >1 \implies |G| \geq 30 . Therefore n 5 = 1 n_{5} = 1 . Then for the sole P S y l 5 ( G ) P \in Syl_{5}(G) , we have that: g P \forall g \in P , the order of g g divides the order of P P , which is 5 5 . There exists a single identity element of order one in P P , and thus all other elements in P P are of order 5 5 . Thus we get the answer of 4 4 elements existing in G G of order 5 5 .

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