Orbit-stabilizer theorem

The orbit-stabilizer theorem is a combinatorial result in group theory.

Let $G$ be a group acting on a set $S$ . For any $i \in S$ , let $\text{stab}(i)$ denote the stabilizer of $i$ , and let $\text{orb}(i)$ denote the orbit of $i$ . The orbit-stabilizer theorem states that $\lvert G \rvert = \lvert \text{orb}(i) \rvert \cdot \lvert \text{stab}(i) \rvert .$

Proof. Without loss of generality, let $G$ operate on $S$ from the right. We note that if $\alpha, \beta$ are elements of $G$ such that $\alpha(i) = \beta(i)$ , then $\alpha^{-1} \beta \in \text{stab}(i)$ . Hence for any $x \in \text{orb}(i)$ , the set of elements $\alpha$ of $G$ for which $\alpha(i)= x$ constitute a unique left coset modulo $\text{stab}(i)$ . Thus $\lvert \text{orb}(i) \rvert = \lvert G/\text{stab}(i) \rvert.$ The result then follows from Lagrange's Theorem. $\blacksquare$

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Orbit-stabilizer theorem

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