Derangements in non-Frobenius groups

Abstract

We prove that if $G$ is a transitive permutation group of sufficiently large degree $n$, then either $G$ is primitive and Frobenius, or the proportion of derangements in $G$ is larger than $1/(2n^{1/2})$. This is sharp, generalizes substantially bounds of Cameron--Cohen and Guralnick--Wan, and settles conjectures of Guralnick--Tiep and Bailey--Cameron--Giudici--Royle in large degree. We also give an application to coverings of varieties over finite fields.

v1: 27 pp. v2: 27 pp; added Corollary 1.2; other minor changes