A permutation array A is a set of permutations on a finite set Ω\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\Omega $$\end{document}, say of size n. Given distinct permutations π,σ∈Ω\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\pi , \sigma \in \Omega $$\end{document}, we let hd(π,σ)=|{x∈Ω:π(x)≠σ(x)}|\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$hd(\pi , \sigma ) = |\{ x\in \Omega : \pi (x) \ne \sigma (x) \}|$$\end{document}, called the Hamming distance between π\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\pi $$\end{document} and σ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\sigma $$\end{document}. Now let hd(A)=\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$hd(A) =$$\end{document} min{hd(π,σ):π,σ∈A}\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\{ hd(\pi , \sigma ): \pi , \sigma \in A \}$$\end{document}. For positive integers n and d with d≤n\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$d\le n$$\end{document} we let M(n, d) be the maximum number of permutations in any array A satisfying hd(A)≥d\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$hd(A) \ge d$$\end{document}. There is an extensive literature on the function M(n, d), motivated in part by suggested applications to error correcting codes for message transmission over power lines. A basic fact is that if a permutation group G is sharply k-transitive on a set of size n≥k\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$n\ge k$$\end{document}, then M(n,n-k+1)=|G|\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$M(n,n-k+1) = |G|$$\end{document}. Motivated by this we consider the permutation groups AGL(1, q) and PGL(2, q) acting sharply 2-transitively on GF(q) and sharply 3-transitively on GF(q)∪{∞}\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$GF(q)\cup \{\infty \}$$\end{document} respectively. Applying a contraction operation to these groups, we obtain the following new lower bounds for prime powers q satisfying q≡1\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$q\equiv 1$$\end{document} (mod 3).M(q-1,q-3)≥(q2-1)/2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$M(q-1,q-3)\ge (q^{2} - 1)/2$$\end{document} for q odd, q≥7\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$q\ge 7$$\end{document},M(q-1,q-3)≥(q-1)(q+2)/3\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$M(q-1,q-3)\ge (q-1)(q+2)/3$$\end{document} for q even, q≥8\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$q\ge 8$$\end{document},M(q,q-3)≥Kq2log(q)\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$M(q,q-3)\ge Kq^{2}log(q)$$\end{document} for some constant K>0\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$K>0$$\end{document} if q is odd. These results resolve a case left open in a previous paper (Bereg et al. in Des Codes Cryptogr 86(5):1095–1111, 2018), where it was shown that M(q-1,q-3)≥q2-q\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$M(q-1, q-3) \ge q^{2} - q$$\end{document} and M(q,q-3)≥q3-q\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$M(q,q-3) \ge q^{3} - q$$\end{document} for all prime powers q such that q≢1\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$q\not \equiv 1$$\end{document} (mod 3). We also obtain lower bounds for M(n, d) for a finite number of exceptional pairs n, d, by applying this contraction operation to the sharply 4 and 5-transitive Mathieu groups.
