On the diameters of McKay graphs for finite simple groups (Q2022785)

Let \(G\) be a finite group and let \(\alpha\) be a complex character of \(G\). The McKay graph \(\mathcal{M}(G, \alpha)=(\mathsf{V}, \mathsf{E})\) is the directed graph with vertex set \(\mathsf{V}=\mathrm{Irr}(G)\) and \((\chi_{1},\chi_{2}) \in \mathsf{E}\) if and only if \(\chi_{2}\) is a constituent of \(\alpha \chi_{1}\). The McKay correspondence [\textit{J. McKay}, Proc. Symp. Pure Math. 37, 183--186 (1980; Zbl 0451.05026)] shows that if \(G\) is a finite subgroup of \(\mathrm{SU}_{2}(\mathbb{C})\) and \(\alpha\) is the corresponding 2-dimensional character of \(G\), then \(\mathcal{M}(G, \alpha)\) is an affine Dynkin diagram of type \(\mathtt{A}\), \(\mathtt{D}\) or \(\mathtt{E}\). By a classical result of Burnside and Brauer [\textit{R. Brauer} Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 15, 31--34 (1964; Zbl 0122.27503)], \(\mathcal{M}(G, \alpha)\) is connected if and only if \(\alpha\) is faithful, and moreover in this case an upper bound for the diameter \(\mathsf{diam}\, \mathcal{M}(G, \alpha)\) is given by \(N-1\), where \(N\) is the number of distinct values of \(\alpha\). The purpose of the paper under review is the study of McKay graphs for simple groups, focusing particularly on their diameters. The main results proved by the authors are the following three theorems. Theorem 2: There is an absolute constant \(C\) such that \(\mathsf{diam}\, \mathcal{M}(G, \alpha) \leq C r^{2}\) for any finite simple group \(G\) of Lie type of rank \(r\) and any nontrivial irreducible character \(\alpha\) of \(G\). Theorem 3: There exist an absolute constant \(C\) and a function \(g : \mathbb{N} \rightarrow \mathbb{N}\) such that the following holds. If \(G = \mathrm{PSL}^{\epsilon}_{n}(q)\) with \(n \geq 2\), \(\epsilon= \pm\), and \(q > g(n)\), then \(\mathsf{diam}\, \mathcal{M}(G, \alpha) \leq C\cdot \log(|G|)\cdot\log(\alpha(1))^{-1}\) for all nontrivial irreducible characters \(\alpha\) of \(G\). Theorem 5: Let \(n \geq 5\) and let \(G = \mathsf{A}_{n}\) or \(\mathsf{S}_{n}\). Then for any faithful irreducible character \(\alpha\) of \(G\), we have \(\mathsf{diam}\, \mathcal{M}(G, \alpha) \leq 4(n-1)\).