On the multiple holomorph of a finite almost simple group

Abstract

Let $G$ be a group. Let $\mathrm{Perm}(G)$ denote its symmetric group and write $\mathrm{Hol}(G)$ for the normalizer of the subgroup of left translations in $\mathrm{Perm}(G)$. The multiple holomorph $\mathrm{NHol}(G)$ of $G$ is in turn defined to be the normalizer of $\mathrm{Hol}(G)$ in $\mathrm{Perm}(G)$. In this paper, we shall show that the quotient group $\mathrm{NHol}(G)/\mathrm{Hol}(G)$ has order two when $G$ is finite and almost simple. As an application of our techniques, we shall also develop a method to count the number of Hopf-Galois structures of isomorphic type on a finite almost simple extension in terms of fixed point free endomorphisms.

revised based on referee's comments; more details are added to the proof of Theorem 1.3