Probability that the commutator of two group elements is equal to a given element. (Q2464513)

For a finite group \(G\) and \(g\in G\) let \(p_g(G)\) be the proportion of pairs \((x,y)\in G\times G\) for which the commutator \([x,y]\) equals \(g\). It is a well known exercise to show that \(p_1(G)\leq 5/8\) for any nonabelian group \(G\). The authors of the present paper observe that a result of Frobenius shows that in general, if \(g\in G'\), then \(p_g(G)=(1/|G|)\sum\chi(g)/\chi(1)\) where the sum is over all irreducible characters \(\chi\) of \(G\). They use this to get exact values of \(p_g(G)\) for some special groups; for example, for groups of nilpotence class 2, or when \(|G'|\) is prime. More generally they show that for any finite group \(p_g(G)<1/2\) whenever \(g\neq 1\) and that there are arbitrarily large groups with elements \(g\) which approach this bound.