A note on the localization of finite groups (Q1568749)

The main result of the paper under review is that the localization of a finite group is not necessarily finite. Recall that a group \(G\) is said to be \(f\)-local with respect to a homomorphism \(f\colon A\to B\) if the function \(f^*\colon\text{Hom}(B,G)\to\text{Hom}(A,G)\), \(\varphi\mapsto\varphi\circ f\) is an isomorphism. A homomorphism \(l\colon H\to H'\) is an \(f\)-localization if \(H'\) is an \(f\)-local group and \(l^*\colon\text{Hom}(H',G)\to\text{Hom}(H,G)\) is an isomorphism for all \(f\)-local groups \(G\). The \(f\)-localization of a group can be constructed in a functorial way and it is essentially unique. One of the main problems of the theory is to determine which group properties are preserved under various localizations. To prove that the finiteness is not preserved the author considers the localization with respect to the map \(f\colon A_n\to\text{SO}(n-1)\), where \(A_n\) is the alternating group on \(n\) letters and \(f\) is obtained by restricting the usual permutation representation of \(A_n\) into \(\text{SO}(n)\) to the invariant hyperplane orthogonal to the vector \((1,\ldots,1)\). The main theorem asserts that for all even \(n\geq 10\), and for every homomorphism \(\varphi\colon A_n\to\text{SO}(n-1)\) there is a unique homomorphism \(\overline\varphi\colon\text{SO}(n-1)\to\text{SO}(n-1)\), such that \(\overline\varphi\circ f=\varphi\). This immediately implies that \(\text{SO}(n-1)\) is indeed the \(f\)-localization of \(A_n\), hence the localization of a finite group need not be finite. The proof of the main theorem uses standard methods from representation theory.