For an element $g$ in a group $X$, we say that $g$ has 2-part order $2^{a}$ if $2^{a}$ is the largest power of 2 dividing the order of $g$. We prove lower bounds on the proportion of elements in finite classical groups in odd characteristic that have certain 2-part orders. In particular, we show that the proportion of odd order elements in the symplectic and orthogonal groups is at least $C/\ell^{3/4}$, where $\ell$ is the Lie rank, and $C$ is an explicit constant. We also prove positive constant lower bounds for the proportion of elements of certain 2-part orders independent of the Lie rank. Furthermore, we describe how these results can be used to analyze part of Yalçinkaya's Black Box recognition algorithm for finite classical groups in odd characteristic.
We prove that the function $\mathrm{P}_{\mathrm{v}}(G)$, measuring the proportion of the elements of a finite group $G$ that are zeros of irreducible characters of $G$, takes very sparse values in a large segment of the $[0,1]$ interval.
For a prime $r$, we obtain lower bounds on the proportion of $r$-regular elements in classical groups and show that these lower bounds are the best possible lower bounds that do not depend on the order of the defining field. Along the way, we also provide new upper bounds and answer some open questions of the first author, Pálfy and Saxl.
Let $(K,Δ)$ be a Hermitian form field and $n\geq 3$. We prove that if $σ\in U_{2n+1}(K,Δ)$ is a unitary matrix of level $(K,Δ)$, then any short root transvection $T_{ij}(x)$ is a product of $4$ elementary unitary conjugates of $σ$ and $σ^{-1}$. Moreover, the bound $4$ is sharp. We also show that any extra short root transvection $T_i(x,y)$ is a product of $12$ elementary unitary conjugates of $σ$ and $σ^{-1}$. If the level of $σ$ is $(0,K\times 0)$, then any $(0,K\times 0)$-elementary extra short root transvection $T_i(x,0)$ is a product of $2$ elementary unitary conjugates of $σ$ and $σ^{-1}$…
We study the commuting graph on elements of odd prime order in finite simple groups. The results are used in a forthcoming paper describing the structure of Bruck loops and Bol loops of exponent 2.
In this paper, we study the proportion of vanishing elements of finite groups. We show that the proportion of vanishing elements of every finite non-abelian group is bounded below by $1/2$ and classify all finite groups whose proportions of vanishing elements attain this bound. For symmetric groups of degree at least $5$, we show that this bound is at least $2327/2520$ which is best possible.
In this article we define a set of matrices analogous to Vaserstein-type matrices which was introduced in the paper `Serre's problem on projective modules over polynomial rings and algebraic K-theory' by Suslin-Vaserstein in 1976. We prove that these are elementary linear matrices. Also, under some conditions, these matrices belong to Petrov's odd unitary group which is a generalization of all classical groups. We also prove that the group generated by these matrices is a conjugate of the Petrov's odd elementary hyperbolic unitary group when the ring is commutative.
In 1995, Isaacs, Kantor and Spaltenstein proved that for a finite simple classical group G defined over a field with q elements, and for a prime divisor p of |G| distinct from the characteristic, the proportion of p-singular elements in G (elements with order divisible by p) is at least a constant multiple of (1 - 1/p)/e, where e is the order of q modulo p. Motivated by algorithmic applications, we define a subfamily of p-singular elements, called p-abundant elements, which leave invariant certain "large" subspaces of the natural G-module. We find explicit upper and lower bounds for the propor…
Denote by $G$ a finite group and by $ψ(G)$ the sum of element orders in $G$. If $t$ is a positive integer, denote by $C_t$ the cyclic group of order $t$ and write $ψ(t)=ψ(C_t)$. In this paper we proved the following Theorem A: Let $G$ be a non-cyclic group of odd order $n=qm$, where $q$ is the smallest prime divisor of $n$ and $(m,q)=1$. Then the following statements hold. (1) If $q=3$, then $\frac {ψ(G)}{ψ(|G|)}\leq \frac {85}{301}$, and equality holds if and only if $n=3\cdot 7\cdot m_1$ with $(m_1,42)=1$ and $G=(C_7\rtimes C_3)\times C_{m_1}$, with $C_7\rtimes C_3$ non-abelian. (2) If $q>3$…
We analyse the complexity of constructing involution centralisers in unitary groups over fields of odd order. In particular, we prove logarithmic bounds on the number of random elements required to generate a subgroup of the centraliser of a strong involution that contains the last term of its derived series. We use this to strengthen previous bounds on the complexity of recognition algorithms for unitary groups in odd characteristic. Our approach generalises and extends two previous papers by the second author and collaborators on strong involutions and regular semisimple elements of linear g…
We calculate the precise number of r-regular elements in the finite exceptional groups. As a corollary we find that the proportion of r-regular elements is at least 3577/18432 and for all ε>0, there are infinitely finite simple exceptional groups such that the proportion of r-regular elements is less than $3577/18432+ε$ for some prime r.
The commutativity degree of a finite group is the probability that two randomly chosen group elements commute. The main object of this paper is to obtain a characterization for all finite groups of odd order with commutativity degree greater than or equal to 11/75.
Let $(R, Δ)$ be an odd form algebra. We show that the unitary Steinberg group $\mathrm{StU}(R, Δ)$ is a crossed module over the odd unitary group $\mathrm U(R, Δ)$ in two major cases: if the odd form algebra has a free orthogonal hyperbolic family satisfying a local stable rank condition and if the odd form algebra is sufficiently isotropic and quasi-finite. The proof uses only elementary localization techniques in terms of pro-groups.
In the Cayley graph of the mapping class group of a closed surface, with respect to any generating set, we look at a ball of large radius centered on the identity vertex, and at the proportion among the vertices in this ball representing pseudo-Anosov elements. A well-known conjecture states that this proportion should tend to one as the radius tends to infinity. We prove that it stays bounded away from zero. We also prove similar results for a large class of subgroups of the mapping class group.
We classify the nonsplit extensions of elementary abelian $p$-groups by $PSL_2(q)$, with odd $p$ dividing $q-1$, for an irreducible induced action, calculate the relevant low-dimensional cohomology groups, and describe the automorphism groups of such extensions.
Guralnick, Kunyavskii, Plotkin and Shalev have shown that the solvable radical of a finite group $G$ can be characterized as the set of all $x\in G$ such that $<x,y>$ is solvable for all $y\in G$. We prove two generalizations of this result. Firstly, it is enough to check the solvability of $<x,y>$ for every $p$-element $y\in G$ for every odd prime $p$. Secondly, if $x$ has odd order, then it is enough to check the solvability of $<x,y>$ for every 2-element $y\in G$.
We give a short proof for an explicit upper bound on the proportion of permutations of a given prime order $p$, acting on a finite set of given size $n$, which is sharp for certain $n$ and $p$. Namely, we prove that if $n\equiv k\pmod{p}$ with $0\leq k\leq p-1$, then this proportion is at most $(p\cdot k!)^{-1}$ with equality if and only if $p\leq n<2n$.
We classify all strongly real conjugacy classes of the finite unitary group $\U(n, F_q)$ when $q$ is odd. In particular, we show that $g \in \U(n, F_q)$ is strongly real if and only if $g$ is an element of some embedded orthogonal group $O^{\pm}(n, F_q)$. Equivalently, $g$ is strongly real in $\U(n, F_q)$ if and only if $g$ is real and every elementary divisor of $g$ of the form $(t \pm 1)^{2m}$ has even multiplicity. We apply this to obtain partial results on strongly real classes in the finite symplectic group $\Sp(2n, F_q)$, $q$ odd, and a generating function for the number of strongly real…
We study two families of lattices whose number of elements are given by the numbers in even (respectively odd) positions in the Fibonacci sequence. The even Fibonacci lattice arises as the lattice of simple elements of a Garside monoid partially ordered by left-divisibility, and the odd Fibonacci lattice is an order ideal in the even one. We give a combinatorial proof of the lattice property, relying on a description of words for the Garside element in terms of Schröder trees, and on a recursive description of the even Fibonacci lattice. This yields an explicit formula to calculate meets and j…
In 1878, Jordan proved that if a finite group $G$ has a faithful representation of dimension $n$ over $\mathbb{C}$, then $G$ has a normal abelian subgroup with index bounded above by a function of $n$. The same result fails if one replaces $\mathbb{C}$ by a field of positive characteristic, due to the presence of large unipotent and/or Lie type subgroups. For this reason, a long-standing problem in group and representation theory has been to find the "correct analogue" of Jordan's theorem in characteristic $p>0$. Progress has been made in a number of different directions, most notably by Braue…
Hahn's embedding theorem asserts that linearly ordered abelian groups embed in some lexicographic product of real groups. Hahn's theorem is generalized to a class of residuated semigroups in this paper, namely, to odd involutive commutative residuated chains which possess only finitely many idempotent elements. To this end, the partial sublex product construction is introduced to construct new odd involutive commutative residuated lattices from a pair of odd involutive commutative residuated lattices, and a representation theorem for odd involutive commutative residuated chains which possess o…
It is well known that the positive degree cohomology of a finite group G is annihilated by |G|. We improve on this bound in the case of odd degree elements in the integer cohomology ring and show that $e_{odd}(G)$, the exponent of the $\oplus_{k=0}^{\infty} H^{2k+1}(G,\mathbb{Z})$ satisfies $e_{odd}(G)^2$ divides 2|G| and in particular $e_{odd}(G) \leq \sqrt{2|G|}.$ We also provide examples to show this bound for $e_{odd}(G)$ is sharp as a general bound over all finite groups G. The result comes from a fact about zero divisors having "complementary exponent" which we prove using duality in Tat…
For odd n, the alternating group on n elements is generated by the permutations that jump an element from any odd position to position 1. We prove Hamiltonicity of the associated directed Cayley graph for all odd n not equal to 5. (A result of Rankin implies that the graph is not Hamiltonian for n=5.) This solves a problem arising in rank modulation schemes for flash memory. Our result disproves a conjecture of Horovitz and Etzion, and proves another conjecture of Yehezkeally and Schwartz.
