The co-degrees of irreducible characters (Q1182656)

For a finite group \(G\) the co-degree of a character \(\chi\in \hbox{Irr}(G)\) is defined by \(| G|/\chi(1)\). Co-degrees have first been studied by \textit{D. Chillag} and \textit{M. Herzog} [in Arch. Math. 55, 25-29 (1990; Zbl 0671.20007)]. So the paper under review may be seen as a continuation of the investigations. The authors prove that \(\Sigma(G)=\{p\mid p \hbox{ a prime, }p| (| G|/\chi(1))\hbox{ for some nonlinear }\chi\in \hbox{Irr}(G)\}\) is rather ``big''; that means \(\pi(G')\subseteq\Sigma(G)\) if \(G'\neq 1\). (Here \(\pi(G')\) denotes as usual the set of primes dividing \(| G'|\)). Even \(\pi(G)=\Sigma(G)\) if \(G\) is not nilpotent by abelian (Theorem 1). In the same vein as for character degrees or lengths of conjugacy classes \(\Sigma(G)\) may be endowed with the structure of a graph by connecting two different primes \(p,q\in \Sigma(G)\) if there exists a nonlinear character \(\chi\in\hbox{Irr}(G)\) with \(pq| (| G|/\chi(1))\). In Theorem 2 the authors show that \(\Sigma(G)\) is connected with diameter at most 2, which is best possible. (For the character degree graph of a solvable group it is still an open question whether the diameter is bounded by 2!) Among a wealth of other results mainly based on restrictions on the co-degrees we would like to mention. If there is a prime power co-degree \(| G|/\chi(1)=p^ a\), then \(\chi\) is monomial and \(F^*(G)=O_ p(G)>1\). This generalizes a result of Chillag and Herzog, saying that \(G\) cannot be a nonabelian simple group. Note that for class lengths, the analogue is just Burnside's famous result which leads to the proof of the \(p^ aq^ b\) theorem. Furthermore, groups for which all co-degrees in \(\Sigma(G)\) have at most two distinct prime divisors are described. The same has been done for cubefree co-degrees.