Let G be a group and H a subgroup of G. Show that aH=Ha if and only if aha^{-1} \in H fo

stop2dance3l

stop2dance3l

Answered question

2022-01-15

Let G be a group and H a subgroup of G. Show that aH=Ha if and only if aha1H for every hH.
Suppose that aH=Ha. Then for haH we have that h=ah for some hH. Right multiplying by a1 we have that ha1=aha1. As aH=Ha we have that h=ah=ha so ha1=haa1=aha1aha1H.
Conversely suppose that aha1H. The claim that aH=Ha so we will do both inclusions. Let haH. Then h=ah for some hH. Now right multiplying by a1 we ahve that ha1=aha1H. So multiplying again from right I have that ha1a=aha1ah=ahHa.
For the other direction let hHa. Then h=ha for some hH. Right multiplying by a1 then left multiplying by a and again right multiplying by a1 I get that aha1a1=aha1H. Now left multiplying by a I have that aaha1a1=aaha1aH.
Is it necessarily true that aaha1a1=h and that aaha1=ah? This would seem to conclude the result, but I'm not sure if it's allowed.
Also is should I do these kind of ''multiplying'' here? It seems that I am going in circles multiplying everywhere.

Answer & Explanation

maul124uk

maul124uk

Beginner2022-01-16Added 35 answers

As aH=Ha we have that h=ah=ha...
Unfortunately this does not follow: we simply have an equality of the sets aH=Ha. We could fix it up like this:
Suppose that aH=Ha and fix hH. We need to show that aha1H. We at least know that ahaH. Since aH=Ha this means that ahHa and so there exists hH such that ah=ha. Thus aha1=h, so in particular we can conclude aha1H, as we desire.
Your argument for the containment aHHa seems good to me. As explained in comments, there is a problem with the other containment, which indeed does not hold unless in the statement we are qualifying over all a in G at once (and kabenyuk gives a counterexample in this case in another answer).
Kirsten Davis

Kirsten Davis

Beginner2022-01-17Added 27 answers

There is an error at the beginning, when you write h=ah=ha, as this implies that a commutes with h. Further, it seems overly complicated.
Here's a hint: the hypothesis aH=Ha means that for every hH, there exists hH such that ah=ha.
Hence aha1=h indeed belongs to H. The converse is obvious.
alenahelenash

alenahelenash

Expert2022-01-24Added 556 answers

The converse is not true. That is, from the condition that aha1H for all hH it does not following that aH=Ha. Here is an example. Let G=(QQ01),H=(1Z01),a=(2001) It is not difficult to check that aha1H for all hH, but aH=(22Z01)(2Z01)=Ha.

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