Global and local properties of finite groups with only finitely many central units in their integral group ring (Q2240142)

Let \(G\) be a finite group such that the center of the unit group of the integral group ring \(\mathcal{Z}(\mathcal{U}(\mathbb{Z} G))\) is finite. Since [\textit{G. K. Bakshi} et al., J. Pure Appl. Algebra 221, No. 8, 1955--1965 (2017; Zbl 1394.16045)], such groups \(G\) are called \textit{cut groups.} The character fields of such groups are quadratic over \(\mathbb{Q}\) and so form an interesting generalisation of rational groups. In practice they also appear when the abelianisation of \(\mathcal{U}(\mathbb{Z} G)\) is finite, by [\textit{A. Bächle} et al., ``Abelianization and fixed point properties of units in integral group rings'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1811.12184}], and have an especially important role in the study of \(\mathcal{U} (\mathbb{Z} G)\) up to commensurability. In this paper, the authors contribute further to the classification problem of cut groups, Problem 26 in [\textit{S. K. Sehgal}, Units in integral group rings. Harlow: Longman Scientific \& Technical; New York, N.Y.: John Wiley \& Sons (1993; Zbl 0803.16022)]. More precisely, a classification of all finite simple cut groups is obtained. Furthermore, a new proof is given of a result of \textit{Z. F. Patai} [in Ukrainian: Questions of qualitative theory of differential equations and their applications, Collect. sci. Works, Acad. Sci. Ukr. SSR, Inst. Math., Kiev, 47--48 (1978; Zbl 0415.16010)] saying that a group of nilpotency class \(2\) is cut if and only if the exponent of \(\mathcal{Z}(G/N)\) is a divisor of \(4\) or \(6\) for all \(N \triangleleft G\). Besides classification results, the authors also obtain new character theoretic and local-global properties of cut groups. Concerning the former it is proven that the action of \(\mathrm{Gal}(\mathbb{Q}(\zeta_{\exp(G)})/\mathbb{Q})\) on the conjugacy classes of \(G\) and on the irreducible characters of \(G\) are permutation isomorphic. In particular, the number of rational irreducible characters equal the number of rational conjugacy classes. In contrast to Artin's bijection between \(\mathbb{Q}\)-classes and irreducible \(\mathbb{Q}\)-characters, the authors result does not hold in general (as demonstrated by Example 3.3. of the paper). Following earlier work of some of the authors, the prime divisors \(\pi(G)\) of \(|G|\) for \(G\) a cut group are quit limited. Among others, \(|G|\) need to be divisible by \(2\) or \(3\) and if \(G\) is solvable \(\pi(G) \subseteq \{ 2,3,5,7\}\). Thus understanding the local behaviour at the prime \(3\) is of particular interest. For many classes of groups, it is proven that the cut property is inherited by the Sylow \(3\)-subgroups. These classes contain supersolvable, simple and Frobenius groups and also groups with abelian or normal Sylow \(3\)-subgroups. In general the authors pose it as a question. The paper finishes with interesting statistics of cut groups among all \(p\)-groups. For example, using the classical asymptotics of the number of \(p\)-groups, it is remarked that log-asymptotically the proportion of cut groups converges to \(1\). The authors also compute that \(86,08\%\) of all \(2\)-groups of order a divisor of \(2^9\) are cut, whereas only \(0,57\%\) of them are rational.