On the asymptotic Taketa bound for A-groups (Q1357553)

The author produces an asymptotically best upper bound for the derived length of an A-group in terms of its number of distinct irreducible character degrees. An A-group is a finite solvable group, all of whose Sylow subgroups are abelian. If \(n\) is the number of distinct irreducible character degrees of an A-group \(G\), then the author shows that the derived length of \(G\) is bounded above by \(\max\{16,6(\ln n/\ln\ln n)+5\}\). He also produces an infinite sequence of examples where \(n\to\infty\) and the derived length of \(G\) is at least \((\ln n/\ln\ln n)^{1/2}+1\).