Maximal intersections in finite groups (Q2071293)

The aim of this paper is to analyse some invariants of the lattice \(\mathcal{M}(G)\) composed of the intersections of maximal subgroups of a finite group~\(G\). The invariants considered are the maximal dimension \(\operatorname{MaxDim}(G)\), which is the maximal size of an irredundant set of maximal subgroups of~\(G\) (in the sense that no proper subset gives the same intersection), the minimal size \(\operatorname{MinDim}(G)\) of a maximal irredundant set of maximal subgroups of~\(G\), and the minimal and maximal lengths \(\operatorname{MinInt}(G)\) and \(\operatorname{MaxInt}(G)\), respectively, of an unrefinable chain in \(\mathcal{M}(G)\). The finite groups \(G\) with \(\operatorname{MinDim}(G)=\operatorname{MaxDim}(G)\) are called \textit{minmax} groups. In Theorem~3, it is proved that for a finite group~\(G\), \(\operatorname{MinDim}(G)\le \operatorname{MinInt}(G)\) and \(\operatorname{MaxDim}(G)\le \operatorname{MaxInt}(G)\), but in Section~2 it is shown that for any pair \((a,b)\) of positive integers with \(2\le a\le b\), there is a group \(G\) with \(\operatorname{MinDim}(G)=\operatorname{MaxDim}(G)=a+b\), \(\operatorname{MinInt}(G)=2a+b\), \(\operatorname{MaxInt}(G)=a+2b\). Finite groups \(G\) with \(\operatorname{MaxDim}(G)=\operatorname{MinInt}(G)\) are called \textit{strongly minmax}. For a finite group \(G\), \(\alpha(G)\) denotes the smallest cardinality of a family of maximal subgroups of~\(G\) whose intersection coincides with the Frattini subgroup of \(G\). Groups for which \(\operatorname{MinInt}(G)=\operatorname{MaxInt}(G)=\alpha(G)\) are called \textit{weakly minmax}. Theorem~7 shows that every finite weakly minmax group is soluble and the derived length of its Frattini quotient is at most~\(3\). The paper also gives some negative answers to some natural questions, like in the case we have a normal subgroup \(N\) of a finite group \(G\), \(\delta=\operatorname{MaxDim}(G/N)\), \(d=\operatorname{MaxDim}(G)\) and \(\{M_1/N,\dots, M_\delta/N\}\) is an irredundant set of maximal subgroups of \(G/N\), whether there exist \(d-\delta\) maximal subgroups \(M_{\delta+1},\dots, M_d\) of \(G\) such that \(\{M_1,\dots, M_\delta, M_{\delta+1},\dots, M_\delta\}\) is an irredundant set of maximal subgroups of~\(G\), a question that is still open in the soluble universe, or whether the Frattini subgroup can be expressed as an intersection of an irredundant family of \(\operatorname{MaxDim}(G)\) maximal subgroups whose intersection is the Frattini subgroup of~\(G\). Another question posed in this paper is the existence of a finite soluble group~\(G\) with the property that \(m(G)>\operatorname{MinInt}(G)\), where \(m(G)\) is the maximum size of an irredundant generating set of~\(G\). This question has been solved negatively for soluble groups with Fitting length at most~\(2\).