A generalization of the diameter bound of Liebeck and Shalev for finite simple groups (Q2043737)

The main result that the authors obtain is the following theorem: There exists a constant \(c\) such that if \(S_1, \ldots, S_k\) are normal subsets of a non-abelian finite simple group \(G\) satisfying \(\prod_{i = 1}^k \vert S_i\vert \geq \vert G\vert ^c\) then \(S_1\cdots S_k = G\).\par Their proof also yields the theorem: Let \(G\) be a non-abelian finite simple group. There exists a constant \(\delta\) with \(0<\delta<1\) such that if \(S_1, \ldots ,S_8\) are normal subsets in \(G\) each of size at least \(\vert G\vert ^\delta\), then \(S_1\cdots S_8 =G\) in case \(G\) is an alternating group and \(S_1S_2S_3 = G\) in case \(G\) is different from an alternating group.\par The authors point out that this theorem could be considered as an alternative approach to a conjecture of Thompson.