The method of constructing a group as a semidirect product of two groups is well-known in the literature. The main goal of this section is to extend this method to the case of gyrogroups. This leads to a new class of gyrogroups, which includes generalized dihedral groups and dihedral groups as a special case. As an application of this result, we obtain a new gyrogroup of order 16, as shown in Example 5. We begin by introducing the notion of an internal semidirect product for gyrogroups and then formulate the notion of an external semidirect product for a particular class of gyrogroups.
3.1. Internal and External Semidirect Products
We begin with the following lemma, which indicates the uniqueness of expression of a gyrosum under a certain condition.
Lemma 1. Let G be a gyrogroup. If H and K are subgyrogroups of G such that for all and , then , where , implies and .
Proof. Let , let , and suppose that . Using left cancellation law II, we obtain . By the left gyroassociative law, . Set . By assumption, . Note that . By right cancellation law II, . Note that and that . Hence, and so by assumption. By the left cancellation law II, . This in turn implies by the left cancellation law I. □
We are now in a position to prove the main theorem of this subsection. This enables us to decompose a gyrogroup into a gyrosum of two subgyrogroups, one of which is a normal subgyrogroup, under a certain condition.
Theorem 8. Let G be a gyrogroup, let H be a subgyrogroup of G, and let K be a normal sub-gyrogroup of G. Then, the following statements are equivalent:
- 1.
and ;
- 2.
For each , there is a unique pair such that .
- 3.
For each , there is a unique pair such that .
- 4.
If is the inclusion map and is the canonical projection, then is a gyrogroup isomorphism from H to .
- 5.
There exists a gyrogroup homomorphism with kernel K such that for all ; that is, the following is a split short exact sequence:
Proof. (1) ⇒ (2) Let . Since , we obtain for some . Hence, there is a pair such that . Let and suppose that . Then, . By Lemma 1, and . This shows that the pair is unique.
(2) ⇒ (3) Let . By assumption, for some . Since , we have and so for some . Thus, . Let and let . Suppose that . Since , we have . Similarly, for some . Hence, . By assumption, . Applying right cancellation law I, we obtain . This proves the uniqueness part.
(3) ⇒ (4) Note that
and
are gyrogroup homomorphisms. Hence,
is a gyrogroup homomorphism from
H to
. Let
. Suppose that
. Then,
. Since
, we have
and
. Thus,
. Since
, it follows that
for some
. By assumption,
. This proves that
is injective. Let
. Then,
for some
. By assumption,
for some
. Since
, we have
for some
. It follows that
Hence, . This proves that is surjective.
(4) ⇒ (5) Set . By assumption, is a gyrogroup isomorphism from H to . Hence, exists and is a gyrogroup isomorphism from to H. Define . Then, is a gyrogroup homomorphism from G to H. Let . Then, . Hence, . This proves . To prove the reverse inclusion, let . Then, . Since is injective, . Hence, . This proves . Let . By definition, since .
(5) ⇒ (1) Let . By left cancellation law II, . By assumption, and so . Since preserves the gyrogroup operations, . This implies . This proves . Clearly, . Let . Since , we obtain . Since , we obtain . Hence, . This proves . □
Definition 3. Let G be a gyrogroup, let H be a subgyrogroup of G, and let K be a normal subgyrogroup of G. If one of the (equivalent) conditions in Theorem 8 is true, then we say that G splits over K or that G is the internal semidirect product of K and H, denoted by or by .
In the case when the gyrogroup
G in Theorem 8 is degenerate (that is,
G is a group), we recover the group-theoretic internal semidirect product. The notation in Definition 3 is chosen to emphasize that
. If
G is the internal semidirect product of
K and
H, then the operation in
G can be parametrized by
for all
. The next proposition gives a sufficient condition for a finite gyrogroup to be an internal semidirect product of its subgyrogroups.
Proposition 3. Let G be a finite gyrogroup, let H be a subgyrogroup of G, and let K be a normal subgyrogroup of G. If and , then .
Proof. In view of Theorem 8, we need only prove that . By the second isomorphism theorem for gyrogroups, . This implies that and so . Since G is finite, we obtain , as required. □
As an application of Proposition 3, we obtain the following two examples. This shows that and can be, in some senses, constructed from cyclic groups.
Example 3. In the gyrogroup , let and let . Then, H and K are subgyrogroups of such that . Furthermore, direct computation shows that . By Proposition 3, .
Example 4. In the gyrogroup , let and let . Then, H and K are subgyrogroups of such that . Furthermore, direct computation shows that . By Proposition 3, .
Proposition 4. Let G be a gyrogroup. Suppose that G is the internal semidirect product of K and H, , where is generated by s and R is a right (respectively, left) generating set for K. Then, is a right (respectively, left) generating set for G.
Proof. In view of Theorem 8, every element of G can be written as , or s for some . Expressing g in a right-generated manner of elements in R, we conclude that is a right generating set for G. The left counterpart can be proven in a similar fashion by noting that . □
Following the construction of group-theoretic (external) semidirect products, we attempt to define an external semidirect product for gyrogroups. Let
G be a gyrogroup, let
be a group, and let
be a group homomorphism, where the operation on
is composition of maps denoted by ∘. For
, define
by
In addition, define a map
by the formula
where
is defined by
In general, together with may not be a gyrogroup. However, whenever is a gyrogroup with as the gyrator map, this gyrogroup will be called the external semidirect product of G and with respect to , denoted by . It is clear that if G is degenerate, then Equation (8) reduces to and Equation (6) does define the usual operation on the group-theoretic semidirect product of G and . The following theorem justifies the use of the term “external semidirect product”.
Theorem 9. Let G be a gyrogroup, let Γ be a group with identity , and let be a group homomorphism. Suppose that is a gyrogroup with γ as the gyrator map, where is defined by Equation (6) and γ is defined by Equations (7) and (8). Then, is the internal semidirect product of and , where Proof. Note that must be the identity of by the uniqueness of the gyrogroup identity. Furthermore, the inverse of an element in must be by the uniqueness of a gyrogroup inverse. Let . By definition, and . By the subgyrogroup criterion (see Proposition 1), is a subgyrogroup of . This also implies that for all . Hence, is a subgroup of .
Next, we show that
is a normal subgyrogroup of
. Define a map
by
for all
. Then,
is a gyrogroup homomorphism from
to
. Furthermore,
, which implies that
. By normality,
since
for all
(cf. Proposition 39 of [
15]).
Since for all , we obtain . Clearly, . Applying Theorem 8 with and , we obtain that is the internal semidirect product of and . □
In the next subsection, we give a sufficient condition for to be a gyrogroup with as the gyrator map, where is defined by Equation (6), is defined by Equations (7) and (8), G is a certain gyrocommutative gyrogroup, and is a cyclic group of order two. This method allows us to construct a non-gyrocommutative gyrogroup from a gyrocommutative gyrogroup and an abelian group.
3.2. Dihedralized Gyrogroups
Recall that if A is an abelian group, then the generalized dihedral group associated with A is the semidirect product of A and the cyclic group with respect to the homomorphism sending 0 to the identity map of A and 1 to the inversion map of A. If A is chosen to be the group of integers modulo n with , then is isomorphic to the dihedral group . If A is chosen to be the additive group of integers, then is isomorphic to the infinite dihedral group . In this section, we extend this method to the case of gyrocommutative gyrogroups. It turns out that some gyrocommutative gyrogroups give rise to non-gyrocommutative gyrogroups. We begin with the following definition, which will be crucial in the sequel.
Definition 4. A gyrogroup G is said to have the skew left loop property iffor all . From now on, Identity (10) is referred to as the skew left loop property. It is clear that every group has the skew left loop property. Direct computation shows that the gyrogroup has the skew left loop property. Moreover, the gyrogroup is finite and gyrocommutative but does not have the skew left loop property since , whereas . Next, we exhibit a class of gyrocommutative gyrogroups having the skew left loop property.
Proposition 5. Every gyrogroup of exponent at most two is gyrocommutative and has the skew left loop property.
Proof. Suppose that G is a gyrogroup of exponent at most two. As noted earlier, for all . Let . Note that , which shows that G has the automorphic inverse property. We also obtain that , where the latter equality follows by the left loop property. □
For instance, the gyrogroup in Example 3.2 of [
5] is of exponent at most two, and so it is gyrocommutative and has the skew left loop property. From now on, let
be the group of integers modulo 2, which is a cyclic group of order two. Furthermore,
is recognized as the set-theoretic cartesian product of
G and
unless otherwise stated. The next lemma shows that the group
acts on any gyrocommutative gyrogroup by inverting elements.
Lemma 2. Let G be a gyrocommutative gyrogroup. Define a map φ on bywhere is the identity map of G and is the inversion map of G. Then, the following properties hold: - 1.
φ is a group homomorphism from to .
- 2.
for all .
Proof. Since
G is gyrocommutative, the inversion map
is an automorphism of
G. Hence,
sends
to
. It is not difficult to see that
preserves the group operations, which yields Part 1. It is clear that
. Since
preserves the gyrogroup operations, we obtain
for all
. This shows that
, which proves Part 2. □
We are now in a position to prove the main theorem of this subsection, which shows that any gyrocommutative gyrogroup having the skew left loop property can be enlarged to a new gyrogroup.
Theorem 10. Suppose that G is a gyrocommutative gyrogroup and has the skew left loop property. Then, is a gyrogroup under the operation defined byand in this case the gyroautomorphisms are defined byfor all . Here, φ is defined by Equation (11). Proof. By Part 1 of Lemma 2, is a group homomorphism from to . Since , it follows that acts as a left identity of . Let . Since , it follows that acts as a left inverse of in with respect to . Thus, satisfies (G1) and (G2) of Definition 1.
Let
and let
. Define
, where
is defined by
. By Lemma 2,
is given by
. It is not difficult to check that
is an automorphism of
satisfying
, which shows that
satisfies (G3) of Definition 1. To complete the proof, we calculate
Table 1:
Since G has the left loop property as well as the skew left loop property, it follows that satisfies (G4) of Definition 1. □
By Theorem 10, if
G is a gyrocommutative gyrogroup and has the skew left loop property, then the external semidirect product of
G and
with respect to
defined by Equation (11) exists, which will be denoted by
for simplicity. By definition, the operation on
, written by
, is given by
for all
. Furthermore,
and
for all
. The gyroautomorphisms of
are given by
for all
.
Henceforth, if G is a gyrocommutative gyrogroup having the skew left loop property, then the gyrogroup is called the dihedralized gyrogroup associated with G and denoted by for simplicity. In fact, in the case when G is an arbitrary abelian group, is the familiar generalized dihedral group. In the case when G is with , is the usual dihedral group of order . This justifies the use of the term “dihedralized gyrogroup”. By Theorem 9, is indeed the internal semidirect product of and . Clearly, and G are isomorphic as gyrogroups, and and are isomorphic as groups.
As suggested by the proof of Theorem 10, if G is a gyrocommutative gyrogroup, then the left loop property holds in if and only if G has the skew left loop property. Therefore, we introduce the following definition.
Definition 5. A gyrogroup G is dihedralizable if it is gyrocommutative and has the skew left loop property.
In the next theorem, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for a dihedralized gyrogroup to be gyrocommutative.
Theorem 11. Suppose that G is a dihedralizable gyrogroup. Then, the following statements are equivalent:
- 1.
is gyrocommutative.
- 2.
G is of exponent at most two.
- 3.
and are identical, where is the direct product of G and .
Proof. Suppose that
is gyrocommutative. Let
. By assumption,
Hence,
, which shows that
G is of exponent at most two. This proves the implication (1) ⇒ (2). Suppose that
G is of exponent at most two. By assumption,
for all
. It follows by Equation (14) that the operations on
and
are identical. Hence, the implication (2) ⇒ (1) is obtained by Proposition 5.
Suppose that
for all
. Hence,
for all
. This implies
for all
. Thus, if
, then
Hence, the operations on
and
are identical. This proves the implication (2) ⇒ (3). Suppose that
and let
. Note that
in
and that
in
. By assumption,
, which implies that
. This proves the implication (3) ⇒ (2). □
The remainder of this section is devoted to the study of algebraic properties of dihedralizable gyrogroups and their dihedralized gyrogroups. These properties will prove useful in studying the Cayley graphs of dihedralized gyrogroups in the next section.
Proposition 6. Any subgyrogroup of a dihedralizable gyrogroup is dihedralizable.
Proof. This follows from the fact that if H is a subgyrogroup of a gyrogroup G, then the operation on H is the restriction of the operation on G to H and the gyroautomorphism generated by a and b in H is the restriction of the gyroautomorphism of G generated by a and b to H. □
According to Proposition 6, if G is a dihedralizable gyrogroup and H is a subgyrogroup of G, then H is dihedralizable and exists. In fact, we have the following proposition.
Proposition 7. Let G be a dihedralizable gyrogroup. If H is a subgyrogroup of G, then and are subgyrogroups of .
Proof. The proposition follows by Equation (14) and the subgyrogroup criterion. □
Corollary 1. Let G be a dihedralizable gyrogroup. Then, contains an isomorphic copy of the dihedral group for all with . If G has an element of infinite order, then contains an isomorphic copy of the infinite dihedral group .
Proof. Let
. In the case when
, we know that
is a subgyrogroup of
G that forms a cyclic group of order
n (cf. Corollaries 9 and 11 of [
15]). Hence,
is a subgyrogroup of
and is isomorphic to
. In the case when
, we know that
is an infinite cyclic group. Hence,
is isomorphic to
. □
Proposition 8. Let G be a dihedralizable gyrogroup. If H is an L-subgyrogroup of G, then and are L-subgyrogroups of .
Proof. Suppose that
H is an L-subgyrogroup of
G. By Proposition 7,
and
are subgyrogroups of
. Let
and let
. From Equation (15), together with the fact that
and
, we obtain
This shows that
and
are L-subgyrogroups of
. □
A partial converse of Proposition 7 holds, in the following sense.
Proposition 9. Let G be a dihedralizable gyrogroup. If D is a subgyrogroup of , then either for some subgyrogroup H of G or there are an element b in G and a subgyrogroup K of G such that .
Proof. Suppose that
D is a subgyrogroup of
. Define
Note that
. First, we prove that
is always a subgyrogroup of
G. Since
, we obtain
. Let
. Then,
. Hence,
, and so
. This implies
and
. Note that either
or
. In the former case, we let
so that
. In the latter case, we pick
. Hence,
. Let
K be the subgyrogroup of
G generated by
. We show that
. Let
. If
, then
and so
. If
, then
and so
. This completes the proof. □
Proposition 10. Let G be a dihedralizable gyrogroup and suppose that H is a subgyrogroup of G. If is an L-subgyrogroup of , then H is an L-subgyrogroup of G.
Proof. Let and let . By assumption, belongs to for all . This implies that . □
Propositions 7–10, together with Corollary 1, clarify some aspects of subgyrogroup lattices of dihedralized gyrogroups. For instance, any subgyrogroup of must be or a subgyrogroup of , where H is a subgyrogroup of G. The next lemma allows us to count the number of elements of order two in a dihedralized gyrogroup.
Lemma 3. Let G be a dihedralizable gyrogroup.
- 1.
Every element of the form in is of order two.
- 2.
Any non-identity element of the form in is of order two if and only if a is of order two in G.
Proof. For each element , we obtain , where as . This proves Part 1. Part 2 follows from the fact that if and only if . □
From Lemma 3, we obtain the number of elements of order two in as follows.
Proposition 11. Let G be a dihedralizable gyrogroup. The number of elements of order two in is , where .
Proof. Part 1 of Lemma 3 gives involutions, and Part 2 of Lemma 3 gives involutions. The involutions from the two parts are distinct and are all of the involutions in , which completes the proof. □
Next, we show that a (respectively, strong, left, right, symmetric) generating set for a dihedralizable gyrogroup gives rise to a (respectively, strong, left, right, symmetric) generating set for the corresponding dihedralized gyrogroup.
Proposition 12. Let G be a dihedralizable gyrogroup with a generating set S. Then, is a generating set for .
Proof. Define . We claim that . Note that by Proposition 2, is a generating set of since G and are isomorphic via the isomorphism . Let and let . Suppose that and . First, we show that . Set . As in the proof of Proposition 9, . By Proposition 7, and so . Since , we obtain . Hence, . This implies , which, in turn, implies . This, in particular, shows that . In the case when , we obtain . In the case when , we obtain since both and belong to D. This shows that and so equality holds. □
Proposition 13. If a dihedralizable gyrogroup G is strongly generated by S, then is strongly generated by .
Proof. Suppose that
S generates
G and that
for all
. By Proposition 12,
generates
. In view of Equation (15),
for all
, which completes the proof. □
Proposition 14. Let G be a dihedralizable gyrogroup. If S is a left (respectively, right) generating set of G, then is a left (respectively, right) generating set of .
Proof. Suppose that
S is a left generating set for
G. Let
. By assumption,
for some
. Moreover,
for some
. In the case when
, we obtain from Equation (14) that
In the case when
, we obtain that
This shows that is a left generating set of . Using the fact that for all , one can prove in a similar fashion that if S is a right generating set for G, then is a right generating set for . □
Proposition 15. Let G be a dihedralizable gyrogroup and let . If S is symmetric, then is symmetric.
Proof. This is because for all and . □
We complete this section by recording a new non-gyrocommutative gyrogroup of order 16, constructed by Theorem 10.
Example 5. By inspection, is dihedralizable. Its dihedralized gyrogroup, , is a gyro-group of order 16 whose gyroaddition and gyration tables are given in Table 2 and Table 3, respectively. The non-trivial gyroautomorphism of is given in cycle decomposition byIn view of Propositions 7–10, together with Corollary 1, we draw the subgyrogroup lattice of the gyrogroup , as shown in Figure 1. Since
is not of exponent at most two (for example,
in
), it follows by Theorem 11 that
is not gyrocommutative. This indicates that our construction is not the same as the construction of Mahdavi et al. in [
18]. This is because, when the initial gyrogroup in their construction is gyrocommutative, the resulting gyrogroup is also gyrocommutative (see Corollary 2.3 of [
18]). Moreover, our construction is not the same as the construction presented in [
19] since the so-called dihedral gyrogroup
has the property that all proper subgyrogroups of
are either cyclic or dihedral groups, whereas
contains a proper non-degenerate subgyrogroup whenever
G is a non-degenerate dihedralizable gyrogroup. Finally,
is not isomorphic to the gyrogroup
exhibited in p. 41 of [
20], since their right nuclei are not isomorphic (see Section 3 of [
16]).