Sporadic simple subgroups of finite exceptional groups of Lie type (Q2367181)

The authors solve completely the important question mentioned in the title. Namely, they prove (making use of the classification of finite simple groups) the following Theorem 1. Let \(E\) be a finite simple exceptional group of Lie type, and let \(S\) be a sporadic simple group. Then \(S\) is isomorphic to a subgroup of \(E\) if and only if \(S\) and \(E\) appear in Table I. In particular, (i) groups of type \(^ 2 B_ 2\), \(^ 2 G_ 2\), and \(^ 2 F_ 4\) contain no sporadic subgroups; and (ii) \(M_{23}\), \(M_{24}\), \(J_ 4\), \(Co_ 1\), \(Co_ 2\), \(Co_ 3\), \(McL\), \(Suz\), \(O'N\), \(Ly\), \(HN\), \(He\), \(Fi_{23}\), \(Fi_{24}'\), \(B\), and \(M\) are contained in no exceptional groups. Table I (it is too wide to be given here) contains 10 lines (according to the 10 remaining sporadic groups) and 7 columns (according to the remaining exceptional types \(G_ 2\), \(^ 3 D_ 4\), \(F_ 4\), \(E_ 6\), \(^ 2 E_ 6\), \(E_ 7\), \(E_ 8\)). For instance, the Thompson group is contained only in \(E_ 8(q)\) for \(q=3^ n\) while \(G_ 2(q)\) contains only the Janko groups \(J_ 1\) (for \(q=11^ n\)) and \(J_ 2\) (for \(q=4^ n\)).