When N is a normal subgroup of G, can we reconstruct G from N and G/N? In general, no. For instance, the groups Z/(p2) and Z/(p) × Z/(p) (for prime p) are nonisomorphic, but each has a cyclic subgroup of order p and the quotient by it also has order p. As another example, the nonisomorphic groups Z/(2p) and Dp (for odd prime p) have a normal subgroup that is cyclic of order p, whose quotient is...

By Frucht’s Theorem, every abstract finite group is isomorphic to the automorphism group of some graph. In 1975, Babai characterized which of these abstract groups can be realized as automorphism groups of planar graphs. In this paper, we give a more detailed description of these groups in two steps. First, we describe stabilizers of vertices in connected planar graphs as the class of groups cl...

The spectrum of a graph is the set of eigenvalues of its adjacency matrix. A group, together with a multiset of elements of the group, gives a Cayley graph, and a semidirect product provides a method of producing new groups. This paper compares the spectra of cyclic groups to those of their semidirect products, when the products exist. It was found that many of the interesting identities that r...

In the structure theory of inverse semigroups, there are two approaches, basically from the 1970’s, to build up inverse semigroups from semilattices and groups via their semidirect products. These approaches are dual to each other in the sense that one produces any inverse semigroup from a semidirect product of a semilattice by a group by taking an idempotent separating homomorphic image of an ...