Let the group $G = AB$ be the product of subgroups $A$ and $B$, and let $p$ be a prime. We prove that $p$ does not divide the conjugacy class size (index) of each $p$-regular element of prime power order $x\in A\cup B$ if and only if $G$ is $p$-decomposable, i.e. $G=O_p(G) \times O_{p'}(G)$.
We study finite groups $G$ with the property that for any subgroup $M$ maximal in $G$ whose order is divisible by all the prime divisors of $|G|$, $M$ is supersolvable. We show that any nonabelian simple group can occur as a composition factor of such a group and that, if $G$ is solvable, then the nilpotency length and the rank are arbitrarily large. On the other hand, for every prime $p$, the $p$-length of such a group is at most $1$. This answers questions proposed by V. Monakhov in The Kourovka Notebook.
Although any finite Bol loop of odd prime exponent is solvable, we show there exist such Bol loops with trivial center. We also construct finitely generated, infinite, simple Bruck loops of odd prime exponent for sufficiently large primes. This shows that the Burnside problem for Bruck loops has a negative answer.
Let $G$ be a $(2,m,n)$-group and let $x$ be the number of distinct primes dividing $χ$, the Euler characteristic of $G$. We prove, first, that, apart from a finite number of known exceptions, a non-abelian simple composition factor $T$ of $G$ is a finite group of Lie type with rank $n\leq x$. This result is proved using new results connecting the prime graph of $T$ to the integer $x$. We then study the particular cases $x=1$ and $x=2$. We give a general structure statement for $(2,m,n)$-groups which have Euler characteristic a prime power, and we construct an infinite family of these objects. …
Héthelyi and Külshammer showed that the number of conjugacy classes $k(G)$ of any solvable finite group $G$ whose order is divisible by the square of a prime $p$ is at least $(49p+1)/60$. Here an asymptotic generalization of this result is established. It is proved that there exists a constant $c>0$ such that for any finite group $G$ whose order is divisible by the square of a prime $p$ we have $k(G) \geq cp$.
Let the group $G = AB$ be the product of the subgroups $A$ and $B$. We determine some structural properties of $G$ when the $p$-elements in $A\cup B$ have prime power indices in $G$, for some prime $p$. More generally, we also consider the case that all prime power order elements in $A\cup B$ have prime power indices in $G$. In particular, when $G = A = B$ we obtain as a consequence some known results.
We consider a finite group $G$ with a normal subgroup $N$ so that all elements of $G \setminus N$ have prime power order. We prove that if there is a prime $p$ so that all the elements in $G \setminus N$ have $p$-power order, then either $G$ is a $p$-group or $G = PN$ where $P$ is a Sylow $p$-subgroup and $(G,P,P \cap N)$ is a Frobenius-Wielandt triple. We also prove that if all the elements of $G \setminus N$ have prime power orders and the orders are divisible by two primes $p$ and $q$, then $G$ is a $\{ p, q \}$-group and $G/N$ is either a Frobenius group or a $2$-Frobenius group. If all th…
We are interested in determining the bound of the average of the degrees of the irreducible characters whose degrees are not divisible by some prime $p$ that guarantees a finite group $G$ of odd order is $p$-nilpotent. We find a bound that depends on the prime $p$. If we further restrict our average by fixing a subfield $k$ of the complex numbers and then compute the average of the degrees of the irreducible characters whose degrees are not divisible by $p$ and have values in $k$, then we will see that we obtain a bound that depends on both $p$ and $k$. Moreover, we find examples that make tho…
The {\it prime graph} $Γ(G)$ of a finite group $G$ is the graph whose vertex set is the set of prime divisors of $|G|$ and in which two distinct vertices $r$ and $s$ are adjacent if and only if there exists an element of $G$ of order $rs$. Let $A_n$ ($S_n$) denote the alternating (symmetric) group of degree $n$. We prove that if $G$ is a finite group with $Γ(G)=Γ(A_n)$ or $Γ(G)=Γ(S_n)$, where $n\geq19$, then there exists a normal subgroup $K$ of $G$ and an integer $t$ such that $A_t\leq G/K\leq S_t$ and $|K|$ is divisible by at most one prime greater than $n/2$.
Let $ρ(n)$ denote the maximal number of different primes that may occur in the order of a finite solvable group $G$, all elements of which have orders divisible by at most $n$ distinct primes. We show that $ρ(n)\leq 5n$ for all $n\geq 1$. As an application, we improve on a recent bound by Hung and Yang for arbitrary finite groups.
We prove that if $p$ is an odd prime, $G$ is a solvable group, and the average value of the irreducible characters of $G$ whose degrees are not divisible by $p$ is strictly less than $2(p+1)/(p+3)$, then $G$ is $p$-nilpotent. We show that there are examples that are not $p$-nilpotent where this bound is met for every prime $p$. We then prove a number of variations of this result.
Let $p$ be a prime and $G$ a subgroup of $GL_d(p)$. We define $G$ to be $p$-exceptional if it has order divisible by $p$, but all its orbits on vectors have size coprime to $p$. We obtain a classification of $p$-exceptional linear groups. This has consequences for a well known conjecture in representation theory, and also for a longstanding question concerning 1/2-transitive linear groups (i.e. those having all orbits on nonzero vectors of equal length), classifying those of order divisible by $p$.
Given a Mersenne prime $q$ and a positive even integer $e$, let $F$ and $E$ be the fields of orders $q$ and $q^e$ respectively. Let $C$ be a cyclic subgroup of $E^\times$ whose index in $E^\times$ is divisible only by primes dividing $q - 1$. We compute the character degrees of the group $C \rtimes {\rm Gal} (E/F)$ by using the Galois connection between the subfields of $E$ and the Galois group ${\rm Gal} (E/F)$.
Let $G$ be a transitive permutation group of degree $n$. We say that $G$ is $2'$-elusive if $n$ is divisible by an odd prime, but $G$ does not contain a derangement of odd prime order. In this paper we study the structure of quasiprimitive and biquasiprimitive $2'$-elusive permutation groups, extending earlier work of Giudici and Xu on elusive groups. As an application, we use our results to investigate automorphisms of finite arc-transitive graphs of prime valency.
Let $G$ be a finite group and let $π$ be a set of primes. Write $\mathrm{Irr}_{π'}(G)$ for the set of irreducible characters of degree not divisible by any prime in $π$. We show that if $π$ contains at most two prime numbers and the only element in $\mathrm{Irr}_{π'}(G)$ is the principal character, then $G=1$.
The prime graph question asks whether the Gruenberg-Kegel graph of an integral group ring $\mathbb Z G$ , i.e. the prime graph of the normalised unit group of $\mathbb Z G$ coincides with that one of the group $G$. In this note we prove for finite groups $G$ a reduction of the prime graph question to almost simple groups. We apply this reduction to finite groups $G$ whose order is divisible by at most three primes and show that the Gruenberg - Kegel graph of such groups coincides with the prime graph of $G$.
We study the Prime Graph Question for integral group rings. This question can be reduced to almost simple groups by a result of Kimmerle and Konovalov. We prove that the Prime Graph Question has an affirmative answer for all almost simple groups having a socle isomorphic to $\operatorname{PSL}(2, p^f)$ for $f \leq 2$, establishing the Prime Graph Question for the first time for all automorphic extensions of series of simple groups. Using this, we determine exactly how far the so-called HeLP-method can take us for (almost simple) groups having an order divisible by at most $4$ different primes.
We prove the "divisible case" of the Milnor-Bloch-Kato conjecture (which is the first step of Voevodsky's proof of this conjecture for arbitrary prime l) in a rather clear and elementary way. Assuming this conjecture, we construct a 6-term exact sequence of Galois cohomology with cyclotomic coefficients for any finite extension of fields whose Galois group has an exact quadruple of permutational representations over it. Examples include cyclic groups, dihedral groups, the biquadratic group Z/2\times Z/2, and the symmetric group S_4. Several exact sequences conjectured by Bloch-Kato, Merkurjev-…
We classify the finite groups with the property that any two different character codegrees are coprime. In general, we conjecture that if $k$ is a positive integer such that for any prime $p$ the number of character codegrees of a finite group $G$ that are divisible by $p$ is at most $k$, then the number of prime divisors of $|G|$ is bounded in terms of $k$. We prove this conjecture for solvable groups.
We classify compact Riemann surfaces of genus $g$, where $g-1$ is a prime $p$, which have a group of automorphisms of order $ρ(g-1)$ for some integer $ρ\ge 1$, and determine isogeny decompositions of the corresponding Jacobian varieties. This extends results of Belolipetzky and the second author for $ρ>6$, and of the first and third authors for $ρ=3, 4, 5$ and $6$. As a corollary we classify the orientably regular hypermaps (including maps) of genus $p+1$, together with the non-orientable regular hypermaps of characteristic $-p$, with automorphism group of order divisible by the prime $p$; thi…
We prove a variation of Thompson's Theorem. Namely, if the first column of the character table of a finite group $G$ contains only two distinct values not divisible by a given prime number $p>3$, then $O^{pp'pp'}(G)=1$. This is done by using the classification of finite simple groups.
Let $G$ be a finite group and, for a prime $p$, let $S$ be a Sylow $p$-subgroup of $G$. A character $χ$ of $G$ is called $\Syl_p$-regular if the restriction of $χ$ to $S$ is the character of the regular representation of $S$. If, in addition, $χ$ vanishes at all elements of order divisible by $p$, $χ$ is said to be Steinberg-like. For every finite simple group $G$ we determine all primes $p$ for which $G$ admits a Steinberg-like character, except for alternating groups in characteristic~2. Moreover, we determine all primes for which $G$ has a projective $FG$-module of dimension $|S|$, where $F…