GVZ-groups, flat groups, and CM-groups (Q2019423)

Let \(G\) be a finite group. It is well-known that \(\chi(1)\leq|G:Z(\chi)|^{1/2}\) and \(|\mathrm{cl}_{G}(g)|\leq|[g,G]|\), for all irreducible characters \(\chi\in\operatorname{Irr}(G)\) and all conjugacy classes \(\mathrm{cl}_{G}(g)\). Here, \(Z(\chi)=\{g\in G\mid|\chi(g)|=\chi(1)\}\) denotes the centre of \(\chi\) and \([g,G]\) is the subgroup generated by all the commutators \([g,x]\) for \(x\in G\). Equalities in the above upper bounds can occur and \(G\) is called a \emph{GVZ-group} if \(\chi(1)=|G:Z(\chi)|^{1/2}\) for every irreducible character \(\chi\in\operatorname{Irr}(G)\) and is called \emph{flat} if \(|\mathrm{cl}_{G}(g)|=|[g,G]|\) for every \(g\in G\). The main results of the paper are: \begin{enumerate} \item \(G\) is flat if and only if it is a GVZ-group. \item If \(G\) is a GVZ-group, then its nilpotence class is at most \(|\{\chi(1)\mid\chi\in\operatorname{Irr}(G)\}|\). (It was known earlier that a GVZ-group is necessarily nilpotent.). As the authors note, it is known that there exist GVZ-groups of arbitrarily high nilpotence class. \item Let \(p\) be a prime and \(G\) be a \(p\)-group. Then \(G\) is a \(\text{CM}_{p-1}\)-group (i.e., every normal subgroup of \(G\) is the kernel of at most \(p-1\) irredcible characters) if and only if \(G\) is a GVZ-group and every character in \(\operatorname{Irr}(G)\) has values in the \(p\)-th cyclotomic field. \end{enumerate}