Related papers: On a minimal counterexample to Brauer's $k(B)$-con…

In this note we give applications of recent results coming mostly from the third paper of this series. It is shown that the number of irreducible characters in a $p$-block of a finite group with abelian defect group $D$ is bounded by $|D|$…

We prove, for primes $p\ge5$, two inequalities between the fundamental invariants of Brauer $p$-blocks of finite quasi-simple groups: the number of characters in the block, the number of modular characters, the number of height zero…

Let $G$ be a finite group, $p$ a prime and $B$ a Brauer $p$-block of $G$ with defect group $D$. We prove that if the number of irreducible ordinary characters in $B$ is $5$ then $D\cong C_5, C_7, D_8$ or $Q_8$, assuming that the…

For a block $B$ of a finite group we prove that $k(B)\le(\det C-1)/l(B)+l(B)\le\det C$ where $k(B)$ (respectively $l(B)$) is the number of irreducible ordinary (respectively Brauer) characters of $B$, and $C$ is the Cartan matrix of $B$. As…

Recently, a new conjecture on the degrees of the irreducible Brauer characters of a finite group was presented by the second author. In this paper we propose a 'local' version of this conjecture for blocks B of finite groups, giving a lower…

Problem 21 of Brauer's list of problems from 1963 asks whether for any positive integer k there are finitely many isomorphism classes of groups that occur as the defect group of a block with k irreducible characters. We solve this problem…

Suppose that $B$ is a Brauer $p$-block with defect group $D$. If $B$ exactly contains 4 irreducible characters, then we show that $D$ has order 4 or 5, assuming the Alperin--McKay conjecture.

For a prime $p$, we determine a Sylow $p$-subgroup $D$ of a finite group $G$ such that the principal $p$-block $B$ of $G$ has four irreducible ordinary characters. It has been determined already for the cases where the number is up to three…

We prove that the number of irreducible ordinary characters in the principal $p$-block of a finite group $G$ of order divisible by $p$ is always at least $2\sqrt{p-1}$. This confirms a conjecture of H\'{e}thelyi and K\"{u}lshammer for…

We show (among other things) that Brauer's k(B)-conjecture holds for defect groups with are central extensions of metacyclic 2-groups by cyclic groups. The same holds for defect groups which contain a central cyclic subgroup of index at…

Let k(B_0) and l(B_0) respectively denote the number of ordinary and p-Brauer irreducible characters in the principal block B_0 of a finite group G. We prove that, if k(B_0)-l(B_0)=1, then l(B_0)\geq p-1 or else p=11 and l(B_0)=9. This…

We investigate a beautiful conjecture of T. Wilde on character values and element orders of finite groups. We reduce it to a statement on nearly simple groups that can be checked ``prime by prime". For these groups, we show that a strong…

We consider real versions of Brauer's k(B) conjecture, Olsson's conjecture and Eaton's conjecture. We prove the real version of Eaton's conjecture for 2-blocks of groups with cyclic defect group and for the principal 2-blocks of groups with…

We prove Brauer's k(B)-Conjecture for the 3-blocks with abelian defect groups of rank at most 5 and for all 3-blocks of defect at most 4. For this purpose we develop a computer algorithm to construct isotypies based on a method of Usami and…

Conjecture A of \cite{EM14} predicts the equality between the smallest positive height of the irreducible characters in a $p$-block of a finite group and the smallest positive height of the irreducible characters in its defect group. Hence,…

Slattery has generalized Brauer's theory of p-blocks of finite groups to pi-blocks of pi-separable groups where pi is a set of primes. In this setting we show that the order of a defect group of a pi-block B is bounded in terms of the…

We show the existence of a unitriangular basic set for unipotent blocks simple reductive groups of classical type in bad characteristic with some exceptions. Then,we introduce an algorithm to count irreducible unipotent Brauer characters…

The longstanding Alperin weight conjecture and its blockwise version have been reduced to simple groups recently by Navarro, Tiep, Spaeth and Koshitani. Thus, to prove this conjecture, it suffices to verify the corresponding inductive…

In representation theory of finite groups an important role is played by irreducible characters of p-defect 0, for a prime p dividing the group order. These are exactly those vanishing at the p-singular elements. In this paper we generalize…

We determine the smallest irreducible Brauer characters for finite quasi-simple orthogonal type groups in non-defining characteristic. Under some restrictions on the characteristic we also prove a gap result showing that the next larger…