Synchronizing groups and weakly perfect graphs: a survey

Abstract

The concept of synchronization has been transferred from finite automata, via transformation semigroups, to permutation groups: a permutation group $G$ on a finite set $\Omega$ is said to be synchronizing if, for any non-permutation $t$ on $\Omega$, the transformation monoid $⟨G,t⟩$ contains an element of rank~$1$. Synchronizing permutation groups are primitive and basic, and so are affine, diagonal, or almost simple (in the O'Nan--Scott classification). In an earlier paper, the author, with João Araújo and Ben Steinberg, surveyed what was known at the time about synchronizing permutation groups. Since then, several new classes of groups have been tested for the synchronizing property, using the fact that a group is non-synchronizing if and only if it preserves a nontrivial weakly perfect graph. Cases studied include diagonal groups with more than two socle factors, two natural actions of symmetric groups, and some actions of classical groups; the proofs are scattered in the literature. My primary purpose is to collect these results with their proofs. As a second objective, I will explain the background, and comment on some related topics. (Reading this paper does not require knowledge of the earlier paper.)