Recognition of some simple groups by their noncommuting graphs

Let G be a nonabelian group and associate a noncommuting graph ∇(G) with G as follows: The vertex set of ∇(G) is GZ(G) with two vertices x and y joined by an edge whenever the commutator of x and y is not the identity. Abdollahi et al. (J Algebra 298(2):468–492, 2006) put forward a conjecture called AAM’s Conjecture in as follows: If M is a finite nonabelian simple group and G is a group such that ∇(G) ≅ ∇(M), then G ≅ M. Even though this conjecture is well known to hold for all simple groups with nonconnected prime graphs and the alternating group A ₁₀ [see Darafsheh (Groups with the same non-commuting graph. Discrete Appl Math (2008) doi:), Wang and Shi (Commun Algebra 36(2):523–528, 2008)], it is still unknown for all simple groups with connected prime graphs except A ₁₀. In the present paper, we prove that this conjecture is also true for the projective special linear simple group L ₄(9). The new method used in this paper also works well in the cases L ₄(4), L ₄(7), U ₄(7), etc.