An exact upper bound for sums of element orders in non-cyclic finite groups

Denote the sum of element orders in a finite group G by $\psi (G)$ and let $C_n$ denote the cyclic group of order n. Suppose that G is a non-cyclic finite group of order n and q is the least prime divisor of n. We proved that $\psi (G)\le \frac{7}{11}\psi (C_n)$ and $\psi (G)<\frac{1}{q?1}\psi (C_n)$. The first result is best possible, since for each $n=4k$, k odd, there exists a group G of order n satisfying $\psi (G)=\frac{7}{11}\psi (C_n)$ and the second result implies that if G is of odd order, then $\psi (G)<\frac{1}{2}\psi (C_n)$. Our results improve the inequality $\psi (G)<\psi (C_n)$ obtained by H. Amiri, S.M. Jafarian Amiri and I.M. Isaacs in 2009, as well as other results obtained by S.M. Jafarian Amiri and M. Amiri in 2014 and by R. Shen, G. Chen and C. Wu in 2015. Furthermore, we obtained some $\psi (G)$-based sufficient conditions for the solvability of G.     

Classification of some 3-subgroups of the finite groups of Lie type E6

We consider the finite exceptional group of Lie type $G=E_6^{\epsilon }(q)$ (universal version) with $3|q?\epsilon$, where $E_6^{+1}(q)=E_6(q)$ and $E_6^{?1}(q){=}^2{E}_6(q)$. We classify, up to conjugacy, all maximal-proper 3-local subgroups of G, that is, all 3-local $M<G$ which are maximal with respect to inclusion among all proper subgroups of G which are 3-local. To this end, we also determine, up to conjugacy, all elementary-abelian 3-subgroups containing $Z(G)$, all extraspecial subgroups containing $Z(G)$, and all cyclic groups of order 9 containing $Z(G)$. These classifications are an important first step towards a classification of the 3-radical subgroups of G, which play a crucial role in many open conjectures in modular representation theory.     

Proof of a conjecture on monomial graphs

Let e be a positive integer, p be an odd prime, $q=p^e$, and ${\mathbb{F}}_q$ be the finite field of q elements. Let $f,g\in {\mathbb{F}}_q[X,Y]$. The graph $G_q(f,g)$ is a bipartite graph with vertex partitions $P={\mathbb{F}}_q^3$ and $L={\mathbb{F}}_q^3$, and edges defined as follows: a vertex $(p)=(p_1,p_2,p_3)\in P$ is adjacent to a vertex $[l]=[l_1,l_2,l_3]\in L$ if and only if $p_2+l_2=f(p_1,l_1)$ and $p_3+l_3=g(p_1,l_1)$. If $f=XY$ and $g=X{Y}^2$, the graph $G_q(XY,X{Y}^2)$ contains no cycles of length less than eight and is edge-transitive. Motivated by certain questions in extremal graph theory and finite geometry, people search for examples of graphs $G_q(f,g)$ containing no cycles of length less than eight and not isomorphic to the graph $G_q(XY,X{Y}^2)$, even without requiring them to be edge-transitive. So far, no such graphs $G_q(f,g)$ have been found. It was conjectured that if both f and g are monomials, then no such graphs exist. In this paper we prove the conjecture.     

Upper bounds for the sum of Laplacian eigenvalues of graphs

Let G be a graph with n vertices and $e(G)$ edges, and let ${\mu }_1(G)?{\mu }_2(G)???{\mu }_n(G)=0$ be the Laplacian eigenvalues of G. Let $S_k(G)={\sum }_{i=1}^k{\mu }_i(G)$, where $1?k?n$. Brouwer conjectured that $S_k(G)?e(G)+\left(\genfrac{}{}{0ex}{}{k+1}{2}\right)$ for $1?k?n$. It has been shown in Haemers et al. [7] that the conjecture is true for trees. We give upper bounds for $S_k(G)$, and in particular, we show that the conjecture is true for unicyclic and bicyclic graphs.     

Minimal homogeneous Steiner 2-(v,3) trades

A Steiner 2-$(v,3)$ trade is a pair $(T_1,T_2)$ of disjoint partial Steiner triple systems, each on the same set of $v$ points, such that each pair of points occurs in $T_1$ if and only if it occurs in $T_2$. A Steiner 2-$(v,3)$ trade is called d-homogeneous if each point occurs in exactly d blocks of $T_1$ (or $T_2$). In this paper we construct minimal d-homogeneous Steiner 2-$(v,3)$ trades of foundation $v$ and volume $\mathit{dv}/3$ for sufficiently large values of $v$. (Specifically, $v>3(1.75d^2+3)$ if $v$ is divisible by 3 and $v>d(4^{d/3+1}+1)$ otherwise.)     

On the distance between linear codes

Let V be an n-dimensional vector space over the finite field consisting of q elements and let ${\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k(V)$ be the Grassmann graph formed by k-dimensional subspaces of V, $1<k<n-1$. Denote by $\mathrm{\Gamma }{(n,k)}_q$ the restriction of ${\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k(V)$ to the set of all non-degenerate linear ${[n,k]}_q$ codes. We show that for any two codes the distance in $\mathrm{\Gamma }{(n,k)}_q$ coincides with the distance in ${\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k(V)$ only in the case when $n<{(q+1)}^2+k-2$, i.e. if n is sufficiently large then for some pairs of codes the distances in the graphs ${\mathrm{\Gamma }}_k(V)$ and $\mathrm{\Gamma }{(n,k)}_q$ are distinct. We describe one class of such pairs.     

A lower bound for on-line ranking number of a path

A k-ranking of a graph G is a mapping $\varphi :V(G)\to \{1,\dots ,k\}$ such that any path with endvertices x and y satisfying $x\ne y$ and $\varphi (x)=\varphi (y)$ contains a vertex z with $\varphi (z)>\varphi (x)$. The ranking number ${\chi }_{\mathrm{r}}(G)$ of G is the minimum k admitting a k-ranking of G. The on-line ranking number ${\chi }_{\mathrm{r}}^{*}(G)$ of G is the corresponding on-line invariant; in that case vertices of G are coming one by one so that a partial ranking has to be chosen by considering only the structure of the subgraph of G induced by the present vertices. It is known that $\lfloor {\log }_{2}n\rfloor +1={\chi }_{\mathrm{r}}(P_n)⩽{\chi }_{\mathrm{r}}^{*}(P_n)⩽2\lfloor {\log }_{2}n\rfloor +1$. In this paper it is proved that ${\chi }_{\mathrm{r}}^{*}(P_n)>1.619{\log }_{2}n-1$.