Finite groups with planar subgroup lattices

Throughout this note, G will be a finite group, IrrðGÞ will be the set of irreducible characters of G, cdðGÞ will be the set of character degrees of G, and rðGÞ will be the set of primes that divide degrees in cdðGÞ. The prime vertex degree graph of G, written DðGÞ, is the graph with rðGÞ as its vertex set, and with an edge between p and q if pq divides some degree a A cdðGÞ. An overview of the literature on these graphs can be found in [2]. It seems that most groups G have graphs DðGÞ that are complete graphs (although we do not want to be precise on what we mean by ‘most’). For solvable groups, it has been shown that if DðGÞ is not complete, then the structure of G is limited (see [4] and [6]). In this note, we show that a large class of non-solvable groups have degree graphs that are complete. To study the degree graphs of non-solvable groups, a standard starting point is with the degree graphs of non-abelian simple groups. In a series of papers, Don White has classified the character degree graphs of all non-abelian simple groups. Except for some examples of small rank, nearly all non-abelian simple groups have degree graphs that are complete graphs. These results are summarized in [5]. Extending this idea, this note looks at the characteristically simple groups, groups for which there are exactly two characteristic subgroups. Each such group is a direct product of copies of a fixed simple group. With this in mind, we let G denote G G (n copies); thus S is characteristically simple when S itself is a simple group. We now fix S to be a non-abelian simple group. Because the non-abelian simple groups have already been addressed, we restrict our attention to when n > 1. However, it is relatively easy to show that DðSÞ is complete for n > 1. More generally, the graph DðHÞ associated with any non-abelian group H is always complete for every integer n > 1. Thus we expand our scope and consider extending these groups. We recognize first that S is isomorphic to InnðSÞ. Identifying S with its set of inner automorphisms, our goal herein is to prove the following result.

Let G be a finite group and let be the set of degrees of complex irreducible characters of G. An important program in character theory is to obtain the structure of G when is known. In this article, we consider a dual version of this approach. Indeed, we consider non-solvable groups with five character degrees and present a description of the set of character degrees for such groups. As an application of this result, it is shown that a finite group with five character degrees and containing no prime power must be a solvable group.

Let G be a nonabelian group and associate a noncommuting graph ∇(G) with G as follows: The vertex set of ∇(G) is G\\Z(G) with two vertices x and y joined by an edge whenever the commutator of x and y is not the identity. In 1987, Professor J. G. Thompson gave the following conjecture. Thompson's Conjecture. If G is a finite group with Z(G) = 1 and M is a nonabelian simple group satisfying N(G) = N(M), then G ≅ M, where N(G):={n ∈ ℕ | G has a conjugacy class of size n}. In 2006, A. Abdollahi, S. Akbari, and H. R. Maimani put forward a conjecture (AAM's conjecture) in Abdollahi et al. (2006) as follows. AAM's Conjecture. Let M be a finite nonabelian simple group and G a group such that ∇(G) ≅ ∇ (M). Then G ≅ M. In this short article we prove that if G is a finite group with ∇(G) ≅ ∇ (A 10), then G ≅ A 10, where A 10 is the alternating group of degree 10.

Solvable and nonsolvable finite groups of the same order type Pawe PiwekWe construct two groups of size 2 365 3 105 7 104 : a solvable group G and a nonsolvable group H such that for every integer n the groups have the same number of elements of order n.This answers a question posed in 1987 by John G. Thompson.

Let [Formula: see text] be a finite group and let [Formula: see text] be the set of all irreducible character degrees of [Formula: see text]. We consider finite groups [Formula: see text] with the property that [Formula: see text] has at most two composite members. We derive a bound 6 for the size of character degree sets of such groups. There are examples in both solvable and nonsolvable groups where this bound is met. In the case of nonsolvable groups, we are able to determine the structure of such groups with [Formula: see text].

We give efficient quantum algorithms for the problems of Hidden Translation and Hidden Subgroup in a large class of non-abelian solvable groups including solvable groups of constant exponent and of constant length derived series. Our algorithms are recursive. For the base case, we solve efficiently Hidden Translation in $\Z_{p}^{n}$, whenever $p$ is a fixed prime. For the induction step, we introduce the problem Translating Coset generalizing both Hidden Translation and Hidden Subgroup, and prove a powerful self-reducibility result: Translating Coset in a finite solvable group $G$ is reducible to instances of Translating Coset in $G/N$ and $N$, for appropriate normal subgroups $N$ of $G$. Our self-reducibility framework combined with Kuperberg's subexponential quantum algorithm for solving Hidden Translation in any abelian group, leads to subexponential quantum algorithms for Hidden Translation and Hidden Subgroup in any solvable group.

We give efficient quantum algorithms for the problems of Hidden Translation and Hidden Subgroup in a large class of non-abelian solvable groups including solvable groups of constant exponent and of constant length derived series. Our algorithms are recursive. For the base case, we solve efficiently Hidden Translation in $\Z_{p}^{n}$, whenever $p$ is a fixed prime. For the induction step, we introduce the problem Translating Coset generalizing both Hidden Translation and Hidden Subgroup, and prove a powerful self-reducibility result: Translating Coset in a finite solvable group $G$ is reducible to instances of Translating Coset in $G/N$ and $N$, for appropriate normal subgroups $N$ of $G$. Our self-reducibility framework combined with Kuperberg's subexponential quantum algorithm for solving Hidden Translation in any abelian group, leads to subexponential quantum algorithms for Hidden Translation and Hidden Subgroup in any solvable group.

The energy of unitary cayley graphs

Let G be a finite nonabelian group and associate a disoriented noncommuting graph ∇(G) with G as follows: the vertex set of ∇(G) is G\Z(G) with two vertices x and y joined by an edge whenever the commutator of x and y is not the identity. In 1987, J. G. Thompson gave the following conjecture.Thompson's Conjecture If G is a finite group with Z(G) = 1 and M is a nonabelian simple group satisfying N(G) = N(M), then G ≅ M, where N(G) denotes the set of the sizes of the conjugacy classes of G.In 2006, A. Abdollahi, S. Akbari and H. R. Maimani put forward a conjecture in [1] as follows.AAM's Conjecture Let M be a finite nonabelian simple group and G a group such that ∇(G)≅ ∇ (M). Then G ≅ M.Even though both of the two conjectures are known to be true for all finite simple groups with nonconnected prime graphs, it is still unknown for almost all simple groups with connected prime graphs. In the present paper, we prove that the second conjecture is true for the projective special unitary simple group U4(7).

For a positive integer [Formula: see text], if [Formula: see text] denotes the sum of the positive divisors of [Formula: see text], then [Formula: see text] is called a deficient perfect number if [Formula: see text] for some positive divisor [Formula: see text] of [Formula: see text]. In this paper, we prove some results about odd deficient perfect numbers with four distinct prime factors.

An odd perfect number, N N , is shown to have at least nine distinct prime factors. If 3 ∤ N 3\nmid N then N N must have at least twelve distinct prime divisors. The proof ultimately avoids previous computational results for odd perfect numbers.

Marciniak and Sehgal showed that if u is a non-trivial bicyclic unit of an integral group ring then there is a bicyclic unit v such that u and v generate a non-abelian free group. A similar result does not hold for Bass cyclic units of infinite order based on non-central elements as some of them have finite order modulo the center. We prove a theorem that suggests that this is the only limitation to obtain a non-abelian free group from a given Bass cyclic unit. More precisely, we prove that if u is a Bass cyclic unit of an integral group ring ℤG of a solvable and finite group G, such that u has infinite order modulo the center of U(ℤG) and it is based on an element of prime order, then there is a non-abelian free group generated by a power of u and a power of a unit in ℤG which is either a Bass cyclic unit or a bicyclic unit.

Let G be a finite group, and let $$\textrm{cd}(G)$$ denote the set of degrees of the irreducible complex characters of G. Define then the character degree graph $$\Delta (G)$$ as the (simple undirected) graph whose vertices are the prime divisors of the numbers in $$\textrm{cd}(G)$$ , and two distinct vertices p, q are adjacent if and only if pq divides some number in $$\textrm{cd}(G)$$ . This paper continues the work, started in [8], toward the classification of the finite non-solvable groups whose degree graph possesses a cut-vertex, i.e. a vertex whose removal increases the number of connected components of the graph. While, in [8], groups with no composition factors isomorphic to $$\textrm{PSL}_{2}(t^a)$$ (for any prime power $$t^a\ge 4$$ ) were treated, here we consider the complementary situation in the case when $$t$$ is odd and $$t^a> 5$$ . The proof of this classification will be then completed in the third and last paper of this series [7] that deals with the case $$t=2$$ .

If n is odd and σ ( n ) = 3 n \sigma (n) = 3n , then n exceeds 10 50 {10^{50}} .

In 1968, John Thompson proved that a finite group G is solvable if and only if every 2-generator subgroup of G is solvable. In this paper, we prove that solvability of a finite group G is guaranteed by a seemingly weaker condition: G is solvable if, for all conjugacy classes C and D of G consisting of elements of prime power order, there exist x in C and y in D with x and y generating a solvable group. We also prove the following property of finite nonabelian simple groups, which is the key tool for our proof of the solvability criterion: if G is a finite nonabelian simple group, then there exist two prime divisors a and b of |G| such that, for all elements x, y in G with |x|=a and |y|=b, the subgroup generated by x and y is not solvable. Further, using a recent result of Guralnick and Malle, we obtain a similar membership criterion for any family of finite groups closed under forming subgroups, quotients and extensions.