Groups whose Brauer-characters are liftable (Q1079651)

Let G be a finite group and p a prime number. The author defines G to lie in the class \({\mathcal L}_ p\) if every absolutely irreducible p-modular character of G is liftable to an ordinary character. In general, factor groups of groups in \({\mathcal L}_ p\) need not themselves belong to \({\mathcal L}_ p\). For example, SL(2,5) belongs to \({\mathcal L}_ 2\), but PSL(2,5) does not. So the author defines \(\tilde {\mathcal L}_ p\) as the class of all factor groups of groups lying in \({\mathcal L}_ p\), and defines \({\mathcal L}\) and \(\tilde {\mathcal L}\), respectively, as the intersections of these classes over all p. The paper contains two main results. Theorem A: If G and every factor group of G lies in \({\mathcal L}\), then G is soluble (the converse follows from a well known theorem of P. Fong and R. Swan). Theorem B: If G and every normal subgroup of G belongs to \(\tilde {\mathcal L}\), then every nonabelian composition factor of G is isomorphic to the alternating group \(A_ 5\). The converse of Theorem B is false (e.g. for \(G=S_ 5)\). The proofs of the theorems depend heavily on the classification of finite simple groups.