Primitive permutation groups and derangements of prime power order

Let $G$ be a transitive permutation group on a finite set of size at least $2$. By a well known theorem of Fein, Kantor and Schacher, $G$ contains a derangement of prime power order. In this paper, we study the finite primitive permutation groups with the extremal property that the order of every derangement is an $r$-power, for some fixed prime $r$. First we show that these groups are either almost simple or affine, and we determine all the almost simple groups with this property. We also prove that an affine group $G$ has this property if and only if every two-point stabilizer is an $r$-group. Here the structure of $G$ has been extensively studied in work of Guralnick and Wiegand on the multiplicative structure of Galois field extensions, and in later work of Fleischmann, Lempken and Tiep on $r'$-semiregular pairs.

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