Finite simple groups on triple systems

We survey recent results regarding embeddings of finite simple groups (and their nonsplit central extensions) in complex Lie groups, especially the Lie groups of exceptional type. Introduction Throughout this paper, L will be a finite group. Representation theory for L is usually understood to be the study of group morphisms L → GL(n, k) for distinguished collections of fields k (e.g., all overfields of a fixed field F ) and positive integers n . The topic of this survey is motivated by the question as to what happens if GL ( n ,·) is replaced by another algebraic group G (·). We shall mainly be concerned with the case where L is a finite simple group (that is, a finite nonabelian simple group) or a central extension thereof, and G(k) is a connected simple algebraic group over a field k . A further restriction of our discussion concerns the field k . It will mostly be taken to be the complex numbers, in which case we will mainly study group morphisms from L to the complex Lie group G (ℂ). (See below for some exceptions in §3 and §5.) For G (·) of classical type, the theory for representations L → G (ℂ) differs little from the usual one for GL ( n , ℂ). Indeed, a representation L → GL ( n , ℂ) decomposes into irreducible subrepresentations. The decomposition is well controlled by character theory.

Let $$I_n(G)$$ denote the number of elements of order n in a finite group G. In 1979, Herzog (Proc Am Math Soc 77:313–314, 1979) conjectured that two finite simple groups containing the same number of involutions have the same order. In a 2018 paper (Arch Math 111:349–351, 2018), Zarrin disproved Herzog’s conjecture with a counterexample. Then he conjectured that “if S is a non-abelian simple group and G a group such that $$I_2(G)=I_2(S)$$ and $$I_p(G) =I_p(S)$$ for some odd prime divisor p, then $$|G|=|S|$$ ”. In this paper, we give more counterexamples to Herzog’s conjecture. Moreover, we disprove Zarrin’s conjecture.

Finite simple nonabelian groups G that are not π-closed for some set of primes π but have π-closed maximal subgroups (property (*) for (G, π)) are studied. We give a list L of finite simple groups that contains any group G with the above property (for some π). It is proved that 2 ∉ π for any pair (G, π) with property (*) (Theorem 1). In addition, we specify for any sporadic simple group G from L all sets of primes π such that the pair (G, π) has property (*) (Theorem 2). The proof uses the author’s results on the control of prime spectra of finite simple groups.

The classification of the groups of the title is a natural successor to the classifications of finite simple groups and of locally finite linear simple groups. The statement of the classification is given along with an explanation of the examples. The proof is then discussed.

We provide the first examples of words in the free group of rank 2 which are not proper powers and for which the corresponding word maps are non-surjective on an infinite family of finite non-abelian simple groups.

For a finite group $H$‎, ‎let $cs(H)$ denote the set of non-trivial conjugacy class sizes of $H$ and $OC(H)$ be the set of the order components of $H$‎. ‎In this paper‎, ‎we show that if $S$ is a finite simple group with the disconnected prime graph and $G$ is a finite group such that $cs(S)=cs(G)$‎, ‎then $|S|=|G/Z(G)|$ and $OC(S)=OC(G/Z(G))$‎. ‎In particular‎, ‎we show that for some finite simple group $S$‎, ‎$G cong S times Z(G)$‎.

A finite group G with conjugacy class rX is said to be rX-complementary generated if, given an arbitrary x∈G-1, there is a y ∈ rXsuch that G <ce:glyph name=dbnd6/> (x,y). The rX-complementary generation of the simple groups was first introduced by Woldar in [17] to show that every sporadic simple group can be generated by an arbitrary element and another suitable element. It is conjectured in [5] that every finite simple group can be generated in this way. In this paper we investigate the rX-complementary generation of the first three Janko groups in an attemp to further develop the techniques of finding rX-complementary generation of the finite simple groups. As a consequence, we obtained all the(p,q,r)-generations of the Janko group J 3, where p,q,r are distinct primes.

The graph of atomic divisors and recognition of finite simple groups

The set π(G) of all prime divisors of the order of a finite group G is often called its prime spectrum. It is proved that every finite simple nonabelian group G has sections H1, …, Hm of some special form such that π(H1)∪…∪π(Hm) = π(G) and m ≤ 5. Moreover, m ≤ 2 if G is an alternating or classical simple group. In all cases, it is possible to choose the sections Hi so that each of them is a simple nonabelian group, a Frobenius group, or (in one case) a dihedral group. If the above equality holds for a finite group G, then we say that the set {H1,…,Hm} controls the prime spectrum of G. We also study some parameter c(G) of finite groups G related to the notion of control.

Denote by [Formula: see text] the number of Sylow [Formula: see text]-subgroups of [Formula: see text]. For every subgroup [Formula: see text] of [Formula: see text], it is easy to see that [Formula: see text], but [Formula: see text] does not divide [Formula: see text] in general. Following [W. Guo and E. P. Vdovin, Number of Sylow subgroups in finite groups, J. Group Theory 21(4) (2018) 695–712], we say that a group [Formula: see text] satisfies DivSyl(p) if [Formula: see text] divides [Formula: see text] for every subgroup [Formula: see text] of [Formula: see text]. In this paper, we show that “almost for every” finite simple group [Formula: see text], there exists a prime [Formula: see text] such that [Formula: see text] does not satisfy DivSyl(p).

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).

Let G be a finite 2-generated non-cyclic group. The spread of G is the largest integer k such that for any nontrivial elements x1,…,xk, there exists y G ∈ G such that G = 〈xi,y〉 for all i. The more restrictive notion of uniform spread, denoted u(G), requires y to be chosen from a fixed conjugacy class of G, and a theorem of Breuer, Guralnick and Kantor states that u(G) ⩾ 2 for every non-abelian finite simple group G. For any group with u(G) ⩾ 1, we define the uniform domination number γu(G) of G to be the minimal size of a subset S of conjugate elements such that for each nontrivial x ∈ G there exists y ∈ S with G = 〈x, y〉 (in this situation, we say that S is a uniform dominating set for G). We introduced the latter notion in a recent paper, where we used probabilistic methods to determine close to best possible bounds on γu(G) for all simple groups G.In this paper we establish several new results on the spread, uniform spread and uniform domination number of finite groups and finite simple groups. For example, we make substantial progress towards a classification of the simple groups G with γu (G) = 2, and we study the associated probability that two randomly chosen conjugate elements form a uniform dominating set for G. We also establish new results concerning the 2-generation of soluble and symmetric groups, and we present several open problems.

Generation and random generation: From simple groups to maximal subgroups

The spectrum ω(G) of a finite group G is the set of element orders of G. A finite group G is said to be recognizable by spectrum (briefly, recognizable) if H≃G for every finite group H such that ω(H)=ω(G). We give two series, infinite by dimension, of finite simple classical groups recognizable by spectrum.

Compact rings having a finite simple group of units