English

Products of three conjugacy classes in the alternating group

Group Theory 2025-05-12 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

We prove that for δ\delta small, nn large, and any three conjugacy classes C1,C2,C3C_{1},C_{2},C_{3} of G=Alt(n)G=\mathrm{Alt}(n) of size at least G1δ|G|^{1-\delta} we have C1C2C3=GC_{1}C_{2}C_{3}=G. The result provides a positive answer to Problem 20.23 of the Kourovka Notebook [KM22], improves theorems of Garonzi and Mar\'oti [GM21] (using 44 classes) and Rodgers [Rod02] (using larger classes), complements the known result for GG a simple group of Lie type [MP21] [LST24] [FM25], and is tight in several senses. Furthermore, since no character theory is involved, the proof can be used in principle to build a constructive algorithm that, given gGg\in G, outputs ciCic_{i}\in C_{i} such that c1c2c3=gc_{1}c_{2}c_{3}=g.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2505.06012,
  title  = {Products of three conjugacy classes in the alternating group},
  author = {Daniele Dona},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.06012},
  year   = {2025}
}

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43 pages