The automorphism group of the derangement graph of $\operatorname{PGL}_{2}(q)$ acting on the projective line

Abstract

Given a finite transitive group $G\leq \operatorname{Sym}(Ω)$, the derangement graph $Γ_G$ is the graph whose vertex set is $G$, and two vertices $g$ and $h$ are adjacent if the ratio $h^{-1}g$ is a fixed-point-free permutation. In this paper, we show that the automorphism group of the derangement graph of the transitive permutation group corresponding to the natural action of $\operatorname{PGL}_{2}(q)$ on the projective line $\operatorname{PG}_{1}(q)$ is \begin{align*} \operatorname{Aut}(Γ_{\operatorname{PGL}_{2}({q})}) = \left(L_{\operatorname{PGL}_2(q)}\times R_{\operatorname{PGL}_2(q)}\right) \rtimes \left(\langle ψ\rangle \times γ_{\operatorname{Aut}(\mathbb{F}_q)}\right), \end{align*} where $L_{\operatorname{PGL}_2(q)}$ is the left-regular representation of $\operatorname{PGL}_2(q)$, $R_{\operatorname{PGL}_2(q)}$ is the right-regular representation of $\operatorname{PGL}_2(q)$, $γ_{\operatorname{Aut}(\mathbb{F}_q)}$ is the group of conjugation by elements of $\operatorname{Aut}(\mathbb{F}_q)$, and $ψ: \operatorname{PGL}_2(q) \to \operatorname{PGL}_2(q)$ such that $ψ(x) = x^{-1}$.