Complements of the socle in almost simple groups. (Q2504934)

Let \(H\) be a finite group having a unique minimal normal subgroup \(N\) such that \(N\) is complemented in \(H\). The authors are looking for a bound of the number of conjugacy classes of complements of \(N\) in \(H\) depending on the order of \(N\). When \(N=\text{soc}\;H\) is Abelian, from the results of \textit{M. Aschbacher} and \textit{R. Guralnick} [J. Algebra 90, 446-460 (1984; Zbl 0554.20017)] it follows that there are at most \(|N|\) conjugacy classes of complements of \(N\) in \(H\). In the case when \(N=\text{soc}\;H\) is nonabelian, from Lemma 2.8 of \textit{A. Lucchini} and \textit{F. Morini} [Pac. J. Math. 203, No. 2, 429-440 (2002; Zbl 1064.20072)] it follows that there exists an absolute constant \(c\leq 4\) such that the number of conjugacy classes of complements of \(N\) in \(H\) is at most \(|N|^c\). The authors conjecture that if \(N\) is Abelian, then \(c=1\). In the case of finite simple groups they obtain the following interesting result. Theorem. Let \(G\) be a finite non-Abelian simple group and assume that \(H\) is a subgroup of \(\Aut(G)\) containing \(G\). Then the number of conjugacy classes of complements of \(G\) in \(H\) is less than \(|G|\).