Class covering numbers of finite simple groups (Q1320211): Difference between revisions

Let \(G\) be a finite group and let \(\beta(G)\) be the set of all prime numbers \(p\) such that \(p\) divides the size of at least one conjugacy class of \(G\). The set \(\beta(G)\) is said to be covered by a set \(S\) of conjugacy classes if for every \(p \in \beta(G)\) there exists some \(C \in S\) such that \(p\) divides \(| C|\). The minimum value of \(| S|\) as \(S\) ranges over all covering sets for \(\beta(G)\) is said to be the class covering number of \(G\). Using the classification of the finite simple groups the authors prove that for every finite simple group except \(J_ 1\) and some of the groups \(L_ 2(q)\) the class covering number is equal to 1, and that in the exceptional cases this number is equal to 2.