Some More Discrete Mathematics

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).

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 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.

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.

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.

Generation and random generation: From simple groups to maximal subgroups

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

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. Abdollahi et al. (J Algebra 298(2):468–492, 2006) put forward a conjecture called AAM’s Conjecture in as follows: If M is a finite nonabelian simple group and G is a group such that ∇(G) ≅ ∇(M), then G ≅ M. Even though this conjecture is well known to hold for all simple groups with nonconnected prime graphs and the alternating group A10 [see Darafsheh (Groups with the same non-commuting graph. Discrete Appl Math (2008) doi:10.1016/j.dam.2008.06.010), Wang and Shi (Commun Algebra 36(2):523–528, 2008)], it is still unknown for all simple groups with connected prime graphs except A10. In the present paper, we prove that this conjecture is also true for the projective special linear simple group L4(9). The new method used in this paper also works well in the cases L4(4), L4(7), U4(7), etc.

We prove that if the class of the groups generated by the same twisted subset (up to isomorphism) contains a finite simple nonabelian group then the groups of the class are finite perfect central extensions of the simple group.

In her book on varieties of groups, Hanna Neumann posed the following problem [13, p. 166]: “Can a variety other than D contain an infinite number of non-isomorphic non-abelian finite simple groups?”The answer to this question does not seem to be known at present. However, in [7], Heineken and Neumann described an algorithm for determining whether or not there are any non-abelian finite simple groups satisfying a given law. They also outlined a way in which their algorithm could be used to show that “only finitely many of the known non-abelian finite simple groups can satisfy a given non-trivial law”; in this paper, we shall follow their suggestions, and prove theTHEOREM. Let g be a set of mutually non-isomorphic non-abelian finite simple groups, each of which is either an alternating group or a group of Lie type, and let g generate a proper subvariety of D. Then y is finite.

Finite simple non-Abelian groups

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.

The noncommuting graph ∇(G) of a non-abelian group G is defined as follows. The vertex set of ∇(G) is G\Z(G) where Z(G) denotes the center of G and two vertices x and y are adjacent if and only if xy ≠ yx. It has been conjectured that if P is a finite non-abelian simple group and G is a group such that ∇(P) ≅ ∇(G), then G ≅ P. In the present paper, our aim is to consider this conjecture in the case of finite almost simple groups. In fact, we characterize the projective general linear group PGL (2, q) (q is a prime power), which is also an almost simple group, by its noncommuting graph.

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.