Connections between prime divisors of conjugacy classes and prime divisors of \(| G| \) (Q1178040)

This note continues the sequence of papers concerning the parallelism between arithmetical results for characters and results for conjugacy classes in a finite group. For example, D. Gluck [forthcoming paper] has shown that if \(G\) is a solvable finite group and if the degrees of all irreducible characters of \(G\) (over the field of complex numbers) have at most two prime divisors, then \(|\{p\mid p\) a prime and there exists some \(\chi \in Irr(G)\) such that \(p| \chi(1)\}|\leq 4\). The corresponding result for conjugacy classes obtained in this note reads as follows: If \(G\) is a finite solvable group and if \(| G: C_ G(x)|\) is divisible by at most two primes for all \(x\in G\), then \(| G/ Z(G)|\) has at most four prime divisors. The proof consists of the analysis of a hypothetical minimal counterexample and uses a result of Chillag and Herzog (unpublished) which asserts that if \(G\) is solvable and if \(| G: C_ G(x)|\) is a prime power for every \(x\in G\), then \(| G/Z(G)|\) has at most two distinct prime divisors.