Related papers: Chirality and non-real elements in $G_2(q)$

Much work has been done to study groups with few rational conjugacy classes or few rational irreducible characters. In this paper we look at the opposite extreme. Let $G$ be a finite group. Given a conjugacy class $K$ of $G$, we say it is…

We classify finite groups $G$, such that the group algebra, $\mathbb{Q}G$ (over the field of rational numbers $\mathbb{Q}$), is the direct product of the group algebra $\mathbb{Q}[G/N]$ of a proper factor group $G/N$, and some division…

Let $G$ be an algebraic group over a field $k$. We call $g\in G(k)$ {\bf real} if $g$ is conjugate to $g^{-1}$ in $G(k)$. In this paper we study reality for groups of type $G_2$ over fields of characteristic different from 2. Let $G$ be…

The classical Waring problem deals with expressing every natural number as a sum of g(k) kth powers. Similar problems for finite simple groups have been studied recently, and in this paper we study them for finite quasisimple groups G. We…

Suppose that $G$ is a finite group and $K$ a non-trivial conjugacy class of $G$ such that $KK^{-1}=1\cup D\cup D^{-1}$ with $D$ a conjugacy class of $G$. We prove that $G$ is not a non-abelian simple group. We also give arithmetical…

Let $\F$ be a field with a non-trivial involution $c: \alpha \to \alpha^c$. An element $g \in {\rm GL}_n(\F)$ is called $c$-real if it is conjugate to $(g^c)^{-1}$. We prove that for $n \geq 2$, $g \in {\rm GL}_n(\F)$ is $c$-real if and…

Let G be a finite group. An element x in G is a real element if x is conjugate to its inverse in G. For x in G, the conjugacy class x^G is said to be a real conjugacy class if every element of x^G is real. We show that if 4 divides no real…

We prove that if $L=\mbox{}^2F_4(2^{2n+1})'$ and $x$ is a nonidentity automorphism of $L$ then $G=\langle L,x\rangle$ has four elements conjugate to $x$ that generate $G$. This result is used to study the following conjecture about the…

The classical Waring problem deals with expressing every natural number as a sum of g(k) k-th powers. Similar problems were recently studied in group theory, where we aim to present group elements as short products of values of a given…

A word $w$ in a free group is called {\em chiral} if there exists a group $G$ such that image of word map corresponding to word $w$ is not closed with respect to inverse. Similarly a group $G$ is said to be {\em chiral} if there exists a…

We show that, if $w_1, \ldots , w_6$ are words which are not an identity of any (non-abelian) finite simple group, then $w_1(G)w_2(G) \cdots w_6(G) = G$ for all (non-abelian) finite simple groups $G$. In particular, for every word $w$,…

If $G$ is a finite group, an irreducible complex-valued character $\chi$ is called rational if $\chi(g)$ is rational for all $g\in G$. Also, a conjugacy class $x^G$ is called rational, if for all irreducible complex-valued character $\chi$,…

Let $G$ be an algebraic group defined over a field $k$. We call $g\in G$ {\bf real} if $g$ is conjugate to $g^{-1}$ and $g\in G(k)$ as {\bf $k$-real} if $g$ is real in $G(k)$. An element $g\in G$ is {\bf strongly real} if $\exists h\in G$,…

An object is chiral when its symmetry group contains no indirect isometry. It can be difficult to classify isometries as direct or indirect, except in the Euclidean case. We classify them with the help of outer semidirect products of…

Let $G$ be a finite group, and let $\text{Irr}(G)$ denote the set of the irreducible complex characters of $G$. An element $g\in G$ is called a vanishing element of $G$ if there exists $\chi\in\text{Irr}(G)$ such that $\chi(g)=0$ (i.e., $g$…

We call a finite group irrational if none of its elements is conjugate to a distinct power of itself. We prove that those groups are solvable and describe certain classes of these groups, where the above property is only required for…

Let $G$ be a finite group, and let $\mathrm{Irr}(G)$ denote the set of irreducible complex characters of $G$. An element $x$ of $G$ is said to be vanishing, if for some $\chi$ in $\mathrm{Irr}(G)$, we have $\chi(x)=0$. Also the element $x$…

A finite order element $g$ of a group $G$ is called rational if $g$ is conjugate to $g^i$ for every integer $i$ coprime to the order $g$. We determine all triples $(G,g,\phi)$, where $G$ is a simple algebraic group of type $A_n,B_n$ or…

An element $g$ of a group is called {\em reversible} if it is conjugate in the group to its inverse. This paper is about reversibles in the group $G$ of formally-invertible pairs of formal power series in two variables, with complex…

Let $G_1 \times G_2$ be a subgroup of $\mathrm{SO}_3(\mathbb{R})$ such that the two factors $G_1$ and $G_2$ are non-trivial groups. We show that if $G_1 \times G_2$ is not abelian, then one factor is the (abelian) group of order 2, and the…