Related papers: How long does it take to generate a group?

We show that every non-trivial compact connected group and every non-trivial general or special linear group over an infinite field admits a generating set such that the associated Cayley graph has infinite diameter.

Let $G$ be a non-abelian finite simple group. In addition, let $\Delta_G$ be the intersection graph of $G$, whose vertices are the proper nontrivial subgroups of $G$, with distinct subgroups joined by an edge if and only if they intersect…

We study the girth of Cayley graphs of finite classical groups G on random sets of generators. Our main tool is an essentially best possible bound we obtain on the probability that a given word w takes the value 1 when evaluated in G in…

Let $G$ be a group such that $G/Z(G)$ is finite and simple. The non-commuting, non-generating graph $\Xi(G)$ of $G$ has vertex set $G \setminus Z(G)$, with edges corresponding to pairs of elements that do not commute and do not generate…

Denote by $m(G)$ the largest size of a minimal generating set of a finite group $G$. We estimate $m(G)$ in terms of $\sum_{p\in \pi(G)}d_p(G),$ where we are denoting by $d_p(G)$ the minimal number of generators of a Sylow $p$-subgroup of…

Fix a prime $p$ and an integer $m$ with $p> m \geq 2$. Define the family of finite groups \[ G_n :=SL_m (\mathbb{Z}/p^{n}\mathbb{Z}) \] for $n=1,2,... $. We will prove that there exist two positive constants $C$ and $d$ such that for any…

Following partially a suggestion by Pyber, we prove that the diameter of a product of non-abelian finite simple groups is bounded linearly by the maximum diameter of its factors. For completeness, we include the case of abelian factors and…

Let $G$ be a finite group. In order to determine the smallest cardinality $d(G)$ of a generating set of $G$ and a generating set with this cardinality, one should repeat many times the test whether a subset of $G$ of small cardinality…

Consider the random Cayley graph of a finite Abelian group $G$ with respect to $k$ generators chosen uniformly at random, with $1 \ll \log k \ll \log |G|$. Draw a vertex $U \sim \operatorname{Unif}(G)$. We show that the graph distance…

For a finite group $G$, let $\mathrm{diam}(G)$ denote the maximum diameter of a connected Cayley graph of $G$. A well-known conjecture of Babai states that $\mathrm{diam}(G)$ is bounded by ${(\log_{2} |G|)}^{O(1)}$ in case $G$ is a…

The representation dimension of a finite group $G$ is the minimal dimension of a faithful complex linear representation of $G$. We prove that the representation dimension of any finite group $G$ is at most $\sqrt{|G|}$ except if $G$ is a…

An $integral$ of a group $G$ is a group $H$ whose derived group (commutator subgroup) is isomorphic to $G$. This paper discusses integrals of groups, and in particular questions about which groups have integrals and how big or small those…

The dead-end depth of an element g of a group G, with respect to a generating set A is the distance from g to the complement of the radius $d_A(1,g)$ closed ball, in the word metric $d_A$ defined with respect to A. We exhibit a finitely…

Let X be a group with identity e, let A be an infinite set of generators for X, and let (X,d_A) be the metric space with the word metric d_A induced by A. If the diameter of the space is infinite, then for every positive integer h there are…

We study a characteristic subgroup of finitely generated groups, consisting of elements with uniform upper bound for word-lengths. For a group $G$, we denote this subgroup by $G_{bound}$. We give sufficient criteria for triviality and…

A well-known conjecture of Babai states that if $G$ is a finite simple group and $X$ is a generating set of $G$, then the diameter of the Cayley graph $Cay(G,X)$ is bounded above by $(\log |G|)^c$ for some absolute constant $c$. The goal of…

In this paper we measure how efficiently a finite simple group $G$ is generated by its elements of order $p$, where $p$ is a fixed prime. This measure, known as the $p$-width of $G$, is the minimal $k\in \mathbb{N}$ such that any $g\in G$…

We prove a strong general-purpose bound for the diameter of a finite group depending only on the diameters of its composition factors and the maximal exponent of a normal abelian section. There are a number of notable applications: (1) if…

A generating set for a finite group $G$ is said to be minimal if no proper subset generates $G$, and $m(G)$ denotes the maximal size of a minimal generating set for $G$. We prove a conjecture of Lucchini, Moscatiello and Spiga by showing…

The dead-end depth of an element g of a group with finite generating set A is the distance from g to the complement of the radius d(1,g) closed ball, in the word metric d associated to A. We exhibit a finitely presented group K with two…