Related papers: The p-width of the alternating groups

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…

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 describe an efficient algorithm to write any element of the alternating group A_n as a product of two n-cycles (in particular, we show that any element of A_n can be so written -- a result of E. A. Bertram). An easy corollary is that…

Let $\mathcal{R}$ be a finite set of integers satisfying appropriate local conditions. We show the existence of long clusters of primes $p$ in bounded length intervals with $p-b$ squarefree for all $b \in \mathcal{R}$. Moreover, we can…

A subset $A$ of a group $G$ is called product-free if there is no solution to $a=bc$ with $a,b,c$ all in $A$. It is easy to see that the largest product-free subset of the symmetric group $S_n$ is obtained by taking the set of all odd…

We prove that the maximal dimension of a $p$-central subspace of the generic symbol $p$-algebra of prime degree $p$ is $p+1$. We do it by proving the following number theoretic fact: let $\{s_1,\dots,s_{p+1}\}$ be $p+1$ distinct nonzero…

Let $p$ be any prime. We determine precisely those irreducible characters of symmetric groups which contain at most $p$ distinct linear constituents in their restriction to a Sylow $p$-subgroup, answering a question of Giannelli and…

Let $P$ be a finite $p$-group and $p$ be an odd prime. Let $\mathcal{A}_p(P)_{\geq2}$ be a poset consisting of elementary abelian subgroups of rank at least 2. If the derived subgroup $P'\cong C_p\times C_p$, then the spheres occurring in…

For a finite group $G$, the representation dimension is the smallest integer realizable as the degree of a complex faithful representation of $G$. In this article, we compute representation dimension for some $p$-groups, their direct…

Let $F_n$ be a free group of rank $n$, with free generating set $X$. A subset $D$ of $F_n$ is a \emph{Distinct Difference Configuration} if the differences $g^{-1}h$ are distinct, where $g$ and $h$ range over all (ordered) pairs of distinct…

Let $k\geq 2$ be a fixed natural number. We establish the existence of infinitely many pairs of consecutive primes $p_n$, $p_{n+1}$ satisfying $$ p_{n+1}-p_n\geq c\:\frac{\log p_n\: \log_2 p_n\: \log_4 p_n}{\log_3 p_n}\:,$$ with $c$ being a…

The commuting graph of a group $G$ is the simple undirected graph whose vertices are the non-central elements of $G$ and two distinct vertices are adjacent if and only if they commute. It is conjectured by Jafarzadeh and Iranmanesh that…

We investigate the rate of growth of the function of n which counts the number of complex irreducible representations of a fixed group of degree less than or equal to n. The emphasis is on linear groups, especially compact real and p-adic…

For a prime p and natural number n with p greater than or equal to n, we establish the existence of a non-functorial one-to-one correspondence between isomorphism classes of groups of order p^n whose derived subgroup has exponent dividing…

For finite p-groups P of class 2 and exponent p the following are invariants of fully refined central decompositions of P: the number of members in the decomposition, the multiset of orders of the members, and the multiset of orders of…

The number of maximal abelian subgroups of a finite p-group is shown to be congruent to 1 modulo p.

We study the growth of typical groups from the family of $p$-groups of intermediate growth constructed by the second author. We find that, in the sense of category, a generic group exhibits oscillating growth with no universal upper bound.…

This article began as a study of the structure of infinite permutation groups G in which point stabilisers are finite and all infinite normal subgroups are transitive. That led to two variations. One is the generalisation in which point…

Let Sym_n denote the symmetric group of all permutations pi = a_1...a_n of {1,...,n}. An index i is a peak of pi if a_{i-1} < a_i > a_{i+1} and we let P(pi) be the set of peaks of pi. Given any set S of positive integers we define P(S;n) to…

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…