On finite groups acting on acyclic low-dimensional manifolds

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.

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 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 $$I_n(G)$$ 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.

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.

We present an overview of the theory of finite groups, with regard to their application as flavour symmetries in particle physics. In a general part, we discuss useful theorems concerning group structure, conjugacy classes, representations and character tables. In a specialized part, we attempt to give a fairly comprehensive review of finite subgroups of SO(3) and SU(3), in which we apply and illustrate the general theory. Moreover, we also provide a concise description of the symmetric and alternating groups and comment on the relationship between finite subgroups of U(3) and finite subgroups of SU(3). Although in this review we give a detailed description of a wide range of finite groups, the main focus is on the methods which allow the exploration of their different aspects.

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 $S$‎, ‎$G cong S times Z(G)$‎.

Simple classical groups of Lie type are determined by their character degrees

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.

Variants of some of the Brauer-Fowler theorems

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.

For a finite group G, it is denoted by N(G) the set of conjugacy class sizes of G. In 1980s, J. G. Thompson posed the following conjecture: if L is a finite nonabelian simple group, G is a finite group with trivial center, and N(G) = N(L), then L and G are isomorphic. In this paper, it is proved that Thompson’s conjecture is true for the alternating group A22 with connected prime graph.

Finite groups which possess a strongly closed 2-subgroup of class at most two, I

Generation and random generation: From simple groups to maximal subgroups

It has been proved by Frohlich [1] that the collection of inner automorphisms of a finite simple non-abelian group G generates the group (under pointwise multiplication) of all functions from G into G leaving the identity fixed, and, conversely, that the only finite groups with this property are the simple non-abelian groups, Z2, and [e]. It follows directly that the inner automorphisms and the constant functions of a simple non-abelian group into itself generate the entire group of functions from G into G. The purpose of this note is to prove the following generalization of this theorem.