Finite simple groups of bounded subgroup chain length (Q1584620)

Define \(l(G)\) to be the length of a longest chain of subgroups of the group \(G\). The main result of the paper under review is that an upper bound \(B\) on \(l(G)\) does not imply any upper bound on \(|G|\), at least when \(B\geq 20\). Specifically, there is an infinite set of primes \(p\) such that \(l(\text{PSL}_2(p))\leq 20\); and a much more general theorem is also proved. The proof is by some deep number theory, used to show that for any positive integer \(n\), there is a bound \(N\) such that there are infinitely many primes \(p\) satisfying \(\Omega(p^n-1)\leq N\), where \(\Omega(k)\) denotes the number of prime factors of \(k\), counted with multiplicities. The main theorem then follows quickly, using the obvious fact that \(l(G)\leq\Omega(|G|)\). The other half of the paper first establishes an inequality \(\Omega(|G|)\leq(l(G))^2\) in the other direction, using the classification theorem for finite simple groups, and then gives a more elementary proof for the case when \(G\) is of weak characteristic 2-type.