Related papers: The popularity gap
A sequence in an additively written abelian group is called zero-free if each of its nonempty subsequences has sum different from the zero element of the group. The article determines the structure of the zero-free sequences with lengths…
Let D denote the (n-1)-dimensional simplex. Let Y be a random 2-dimensional subcomplex of D obtained by starting with the full 1-skeleton of D and then adding each 2-simplex independently with probability p. For a fixed c>0 it is shown that…
A group is known as `large' if some finite index subgroup admits a surjective homomorphism onto a non-abelian free group. In this paper, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for a finitely presented group to be large, in terms of…
Let X be a finite CW complex. We show that the fundamental group of X is large if and only if there is a finite cover Y of X and a sequence of finite abelian covers \{Y_N\} of Y which satisfy b_1(Y_N)\geq N. We give some applications of…
A well-known conjecture asserts that the mapping class group of a surface (possibly with punctures/boundary) does not virtually surject onto $\Z$ if the genus of the surface is large. We prove that if this conjecture holds for some genus,…
Denote by $G$ a finite group and by $\psi(G)$ the sum of element orders in $G$. If $t$ is a positive integer, denote by $C_t$ the cyclic group of order $t$ and write $\psi(t)=\psi(C_t)$. In this paper we proved the following Theorem A: Let…
We define and investigate the property of being `exponent-critical' for a finite group. A finite group is said to be exponent-critical if its exponent is not the least common multiple of the exponents of its proper non-abelian subgroups. We…
Let $G\cong C_{n_1}\oplus ... \oplus C_{n_r}$ be a finite and nontrivial abelian group with $n_1|n_2|...|n_r$. A conjecture of Hamidoune says that if $W=w_1... w_n$ is a sequence of integers, all but at most one relatively prime to $|G|$,…
For an element $g$ in a group $X$, we say that $g$ has 2-part order $2^{a}$ if $2^{a}$ is the largest power of 2 dividing the order of $g$. We prove lower bounds on the proportion of elements in finite classical groups in odd characteristic…
A 2-covering for a finite group $G$ is a set of proper subgroups of $G$ such that every pair of elements of $G$ is contained in at least one subgroup in the set. The minimal number of subgroups needed to 2-cover a group $G$ is called the…
Let $A,B$ be nonempty subsets of a an abelian group $G$. Let $N_i(A,B)$ denote the set of elements of $G$ having $i$ distinct decompositions as a product of an element of $A$ and an element of $B$. We prove that $$ \sum _{1\le i \le t} |N_i…
The finite groups having an indecomposable polynomial invariant whose degree is at least half of the order of the group are classified. Apart from four sporadic exceptions these are exactly the groups having a cyclic subgroup of index at…
A group A acting faithfully on a set X is 2-distinguishable if there is a 2-coloring of X that is not preserved by any nonidentity element of A, equivalently, if there is a proper subset of X with trivial setwise stabilizer. The motion of…
Green showed that, conditional on GRH, a subset $A \subseteq [N]$ with $\mid A \mid \gg_{\epsilon} N^{\frac{11}{12}+\epsilon}$ must contain two elements whose difference is $p-1$ for $p$ a prime. We prove an analogous unconditional result…
Tarnauceanu [Archiv der Mathematik, 102 (1), (2014), 11--14] gave a characterisation of elementary abelian $2$-groups in terms of their maximal sum-free sets. His theorem states that a finite group $G$ is an elementary abelian $2$-group if…
Generalising a previous result, we determine all non-abelian finite simple groups whose order has largest prime divisor not exceeding $10^4$. The computer code for this and similar calculations is made available.
A group $G$ is said to be $\frac{3}{2}$-generated if every nontrivial element belongs to a generating pair. It is easy to see that if $G$ has this property then every proper quotient of $G$ is cyclic. In this paper we prove that the…
Let $X$ be a sufficiently large positive integer. We prove that one may choose a subset $S$ of primes with cardinality $O(\log X)$, such that a positive proportion of integers less than $X$ can be represented by $x^2 + p y^2$ for at least…
We prove that a random group, in Gromov's density model with $d < 1/16$ satisfies with overwhelming probability a universal-existential first-order sentence $\sigma$ (in the language of groups) if and only if $\sigma$ is true in a…
This paper provides a bridge between two active areas of research, the spectrum (set of element orders) and the power graph of a finite group. The order sequence of a finite group $G$ is the list of orders of elements of the group, arranged…