Frucht's Theorem without Choice

Abstract

Frucht's theorem is the statement that "every group is the automorphism group of a graph". This was shown over ZFC independently by Sabidussi and deGroot, by induction using a well ordered generating set for the group. Sabidussi's proof is easily modified to use induction on the rank of a generating set, and thus holds over ZF. We show that Frucht's theorem is independent of ZFA set theory (ZF with atoms), by showing it fails in several common permutation models. We also present some permutation models where Frucht's theorem holds, even when AC fails. As a corollary, we show that a stronger version of Frucht's theorem due to Babai can fail without choice.