A new characterization of some families of finite simple groups (Q2360059)

Summary: Let \(G\) be a finite group. A vanishing element of \(G\) is an element \(g\in G\) such that \(\chi(g)=0\) for some irreducible complex character \(\chi\) of \(G\). Denote by \(\mathrm{Vo}(G)\) the set of the orders of vanishing elements of \(G\). In this paper, we prove that if \(G\) is a finite group such that \(\mathrm{Vo}(G)=\mathrm{Vo}(M)\) and \(|G|=|M|\), then \(G\cong M\), where \(M\) is a sporadic simple group, an alternating group, a projective special linear group \(L_2(p)\), where \(p\) is an odd prime or a finite simple \(K_{n}\)-group, where \(n\in\{3,4\}\). These results confirm the conjecture posed in [the first author et al., Sib. Math. J. 56, No. 1, 78--82 (2015; Zbl 1318.20012); translation from Sib. Mat. Zh. 56, No. 1, 94--99 (2015)] for the simple groups under study.