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The symmetries of a tetrahedron are isomorphic to A4A_4
February 18, 2025

One of my favorite results from Math 412 is the following:

Claim.  The symmetry group of a regular tetrahedron is isomorphic to the alternating group A4A_4.

Proof sketch.   Given a group action of GG on XX, we can fix gGg\in G and denote xgxx\mapsto g\cdot x by ad(g):XX\mathrm{ad}(g):X\to X. Using basic properties of group actions, we can show that ad\mathrm{ad} is a homomorphism from GG to the group of bijections on XX, denoted Bij(X)\mathrm{Bij}(X).

Importantly, we can show ad\mathrm{ad} is injective iff the action is faithful. This follows because

ker(ad)={e}only eG induces the identity gx=x faithful.\mathrm{ker}(\mathrm{ad}) = \{e\} \Leftrightarrow \text{only } e \in G \text{ induces the identity } g \cdot x = x \Leftrightarrow \text{ faithful}.

Now we consider the canonical action of the symmetries of a tetrahedron Sym(T)\mathrm{Sym}(T) on the faces of a tetrahedron X={f1,f2,f3,f4}X = \{f_1, f_2, f_3, f_4\}.

Clearly the action is faithful, so we know immediately that ad:Sym(T)Bij(X)S4\mathrm{ad}:\mathrm{Sym}(T)\to\mathrm{Bij}(X)\cong S_4 is injective. This implies im adSym(T)\mathrm{im}\ \mathrm{ad}\cong \mathrm{Sym}(T).

But im ad\mathrm{im}\ \mathrm{ad} contains the set of 3-cycles (corresponding to a cycle of any three faces about their shared vertex), which is a generating set for A4A_4. So A4im adA_4\subseteq\mathrm{im}\ \mathrm{ad}, implying that there exists a surjection from Sym(T)\mathrm{Sym}(T) to A4A_4.

Finally, since Sym(T)=12=A4|\mathrm{Sym}(T)| = 12 = |A_4|, we conclude Sym(T)A4\mathrm{Sym}(T)\cong A_4.