On the number of conjugacy classes in a finite group II

In this work we obtain new properties connected with the number of conjugacy classes of elements of a finite group, through the analysis of the numberr _G(gN) of conjugacy classes of elements ofG that intersect the cosetgN, whereN is a normal subgroup ofG andg any element ofG. The results obtained about this number are not only used in the general problem of classifying finite groups according to the number of conjugacy classes, but they also allow us to improve and generalize known results relating to conjugacy classes due to P. Hall, M. Cartwright, A. Mann, G. Sherman, A. Vera-López and L. Ortíz de Elguea. Examples are given which illustrate our improvements. This work has been supported by the University of the Basque Country.     

TheS 3-conjecture for solvable groups

This paper solves theS ₃-conjecture for solvable groups proving that a nontrivial finite solvable group in which no two distinct conjugacy classes have the same order is isomorphic toS ₃.     

On Finite Number of Conjugacy Classes in Groups

The work is inspired by an article of Herzog, Longobardi, and Maj, who considered groups with a finite number of infinite conjugacy classes. Their main results were obtained under assumption that the FC-center is of finite index in the group. We consider here infinite groups with a finite number of conjugacy classes of any size (FNCC-groups). Hence the FC-center in our case will be finite, but of infinite index in the group. Among results on these groups we give a criterion for a wreath product of FNCC-groups to be an FNCC-group.     

Conjugacy in Permutation Representations of the Symmetric Group

Although the conjugacy classes of the general linear group are known, it is not obvious (from the canonic form of matrices) that two permutation matrices are similar if and only if they are conjugate as permutations in the symmetric group, i.e., that conjugacy classes of S _n do not unite under the natural representation. We prove this fact, and give its application to the enumeration of fixed points under a natural action of S _n  × S _n . We also consider the permutation representations of S _n which arise from the action of S _n on ordered tuples and on unordered subsets, and classify which of them unite conjugacy classes and which do not.     

Sign conjugacy classes of the alternating groups

A conjugacy class C of a finite group G is a sign conjugacy class if every irreducible character of G takes value 0,1 or ?1 on C. In this paper, we classify the sign conjugacy classes of alternating groups.     

Groups with Bounded Chernikov Conjugate Classes of Elements

We consider BCC-groups, that is groups G with Chernikov conjugacy classes in which for every element x G the minimax rank of the divisible part of the Chernikov group G/C _G(x ^G) and the order of the corresponding factor-group are bounded in terms of G only. We prove that a BCC-group has a Chernikov derived subgroup. This fact extends the well-known result due to B. H. Neumann characterizing groups with bounded finite conjugacy classes (BFC-groups).     

Regular CW-Complexes and Poset Resolutions of Monomial Ideals

Abstract

We study the generation of a finite group by its conjugacy classes, while generalizing basic concepts from linear algebra: basis and dimension. Besides the well known Burnside Basis Theorem for finite p-groups, there is no direct extension of these concepts to other families of finite groups. We show that by considering generating sets consisting of conjugacy classes, there is a possibility for such a generalization.     

On a Commuting Graph on Conjugacy Classes of Groups

We consider the graph Γ(G), associated with the conjugacy classes of a group G. Its vertices are the nontrivial conjugacy classes of G, and we join two different classes C, D, whenever there exist x ∈ G and y ∈ D such that xy = yx. The aim of this article is twofold. First, we investigate which graphs can occur in various contexts and second, given a graph Γ(G) associated with G, we investigate the possible structure of G. We proved that if G is a periodic solvable group, then Γ(G) has at most two components, each of diameter at most 9. If G is any locally finite group, then Γ(G) has at most 6 components, each of diameter at most 19. Finally, we investigated periodic groups G with Γ(G) satisfying one of the following properties: (i) no edges exist between noncentral conjugacy classes, and (ii) no edges exist between infinite conjugacy classes. In particular, we showed that the only nonabelian groups satisfying (i) are the three finite groups of order 6 and 8.     

Kazhdan constants for conjugacy classes of compact groups

Kazhdan constants relative to conjugacy classes of compact groups are computed. They depend on the nontrivial irreducible characters of the respective group. The result is applied, in particular, to finite groups of Lie type, symmetric groups, and the group SU(n).     

On a graph related to permutability in finite groups

For a finite group G we define the graph Γ(G) to be the graph whose vertices are the conjugacy classes of cyclic subgroups of G and two conjugacy classes ${\mathcal {A}, \mathcal {B}}For a finite group G we define the graph Γ(G) to be the graph whose vertices are the conjugacy classes of cyclic subgroups of G and two conjugacy classes A, B{\mathcal {A}, \mathcal {B}} are joined by an edge if for some A ? A, B ? B A{A \in \mathcal {A},\, B \in \mathcal {B}\, A} and B permute. We characterise those groups G for which Γ(G) is complete.     

Conjugacy Classes,Class Sums and Character Tables for Hopf Algebras

We extend the notion of conjugacy classes and class sums from finite groups to semisimple Hopf algebras and show that the conjugacy classes are obtained from the factorization of H as irreducible left D(H)-modules. For quasitriangular semisimple Hopf algebras H, we prove that the product of two class sums is an integral combination of the class sums up to d ^?2 where d = dim H. We show also that in this case the character table is obtained from the S-matrix associated to D(H). Finally, we calculate explicitly the generalized character table of D(kS ₃), which is not a character table for any group. It moreover provides an example of a product of two class sums which is not an integral combination of class sums.     

Morse theory and conjugacy classes of finite subgroups

We construct a CAT(0) group containing a finitely presented subgroup with infinitely many conjugacy classes of finite-order elements. Unlike previous examples (which were based on right-angled Artin groups) our ambient CAT(0) group does not contain any rank 3 free abelian subgroups. We also construct examples of groups of type F _n inside mapping class groups, Aut(), and Out() which have infinitely many conjugacy classes of finite-order elements.      

About the Schur Index for Ambivalent Groups

An ambivalent group is a finite group all of whose irreducible characters are real valued. By Brauer–Speiser theorem, if G is an ambivalent group, then the absolute Schur index m _Q (χ) = m(χ) ≤2. In this note we shall prove that this property is true also for the derived subgroups of ambivalent groups. Also we will prove that there is a relation between the number of conjugacy classes of 2-regular cyclic subgroups of an ambivalent group and the irreducible characters with absolute Schur index 1.     

Asymptotics of characters of symmetric groups, genus expansion and free probability

The convolution of indicators of two conjugacy classes on the symmetric group S_q is usually a complicated linear combination of indicators of many conjugacy classes. Similarly, a product of the moments of the Jucys-Murphy element involves many conjugacy classes with complicated coefficients. In this article, we consider a combinatorial setup which allows us to manipulate such products easily: to each conjugacy class we associate a two-dimensional surface and the asymptotic properties of the conjugacy class depend only on the genus of the resulting surface. This construction closely resembles the genus expansion from the random matrix theory. As the main application we study irreducible representations of symmetric groups S_q for large q. We find the asymptotic behavior of characters when the corresponding Young diagram rescaled by a factor q^-1/2 converge to a prescribed shape. The character formula (known as the Kerov polynomial) can be viewed as a power series, the terms of which correspond to two-dimensional surfaces with prescribed genus and we compute explicitly the first two terms, thus we prove a conjecture of Biane.     

Constructing some designs invariant under PSL2(q), q even

In this paper, we use Key-Moori methods 1 and 2 to construct some designs from the maximal subgroups and conjugacy classes of the group PSL₂(q), where q is a power of 2.     

Theorem about the conjugacy representation ofS n

Every group has two natural representations on itself, the regular representation and the conjugacy representation. We know everything about the construction of the regular representation, but we know very little about the conjugacy representation (for uncommutative groups). In this paper we will see that every irreducible complex character ofS _n (n>2) is a constituent of conjugacy character ofS _n .     

The exponential image of simple complex lie groups of exceptional type

Let G be a connected reductive complex Lie group. Let E _G be the image of the exponential map of G and E' _G its complement in G. We give a purely algebraic characterization of the set E _G and also describe an algorithm for finding all conjugacy classes of G in E' _G . We are mainly interested in the case when the Lie algebra of G is simple and exceptional. Full details are provided for groups G of type G ₂, F ₄, and E ₆. If G is of type G ₂ then there are only two such conjugacy classes.This work was supported by NSERC Grant A-5285.     

Finite groups whose conjugacy class graphs have few vertices

In this note we classify the finite groups satisfying the following property P₅: their conjugacy class lengths are set-wise relatively prime for any 5 distinct classes.Received: 6 October 2004; revised: 16 November 2004     

Embedding of Nonprimary Subgroups in the Symmetric Group S 9

The nonprimary subgroups of the symmetric group S ₉ are investigated. Embedding properties of these subgroups are listed in a table. Properties such as abnormality, pronormality, paranormality, weak normality, etc. were checked with the help of a computer. Algorithms and codes of the first author were used for this purpose. The research leans upon the technique of Burnside marks, as well as upon pertinent information on the table of marks of S ₉ from the computer algebra package GAP. The subgroups were investigated up to conjugacy; the total number of conjugacy classes of nonprimary subgroups of S ₉ is 432. Some subgroups were additionally checked by other programs based on the double coset method. Bibliography: 24 titles.