Thompson's sporadic group uniquely determined by the centralizer of a 2-central involution. (Q2496186)

The purpose of this article is to present a self-contained existence and uniqueness proof of the sporadic simple group \(\mathbf{Th}\), the so-called Thompson simple group [\textit{J. G. Thompson}, in N. Iwahori (ed.), ``Finite Groups'', Japan Soc. Prom. Sci., Tokyo, 113-116 (1976)]. Let \(H\) be the centralizer of a 2-central involution in \(\mathbf{Th}\). \textit{G. Havas, L. H. Soicher} and \textit{R. A. Wilson} gave a presentation of \(H\) [in Ohio State Univ. Math. Res. Inst. Publ. 8, 193-200 (2001; Zbl 0994.20014)]. Using this presentation the authors construct a simple group \(G\leq\text{GL}(248,11)\) which has a centralizer of a 2-central involution isomorphic to \(H\). In a second step the authors construct a faithful 143,127,000-dimensional permutation representation of \(G\) and prove \(|G|=|\mathbf{Th}|\). In the final step the authors show that any finite simple group \(X\) having a 2-central involution \(z\) with \(C_X(z)\simeq H\) is isomorphic to \(\mathbf{Th}\). This article contains many detailed information about \(\mathbf{Th}\) like conjugacy classes, subgroups, and their character tables. The proofs rely heavily on computer calculations.