The 2-modular characters of the Fischer group \(Fi_{23}\). (Q2498859)

The project to calculate the Brauer character tables for all the sporadic simple groups, for all primes dividing the group order, continues to make impressive progress. The theoretical and computational tools have reached a high degree of sophistication, but are still being improved (as here), and are here combined in a tour-de-force to compute the \(2\)-modular character table for the second Fischer group \(Fi_{23}\). The scale of the problem can perhaps be imagined from the fact that the largest \(2\)-modular irreducible character in the principal block has degree 34744192. The basic technique which is by now standard is to use `condensation' to reduce the group algebra to a much smaller Morita-equivalent algebra. A significant advance in the present paper is to use a criterion from the third author's Ph.D. thesis to find \textit{and prove} a relatively small set of (in this case \(38\)) generators for this condensation algebra. Amongst other things, this involves finding the suborbits in a certain permutation representation on more than \(10^9\) points, using an enumeration technique developed by \textit{F. Lübeck} and \textit{M. Neunhöffer} [Exp. Math. 10, No. 2, 197-205 (2001; Zbl 1044.20006)].