The admissibility of sporadic simple groups. (Q2518354)

A complete mapping of a group \(G\) is a bijection \(\theta\colon G\to G\) for which the mapping \(g\to g\theta(g)\) is also a bijection; \(G\) is admissible if \(G\) admits complete mappings. The Cayley table of a finite group \(G\) is a Latin square, and this Latin square has an orthogonal mate if and only if \(G\) is admissible. A long-standing problem is that of determining which groups are admissible. \textit{M. Hall} and \textit{L. J. Paige} [Pac. J. Math. 5, 541-549 (1955; Zbl 0066.27703)] conjectured that all finite groups with trivial or noncyclic Sylow 2-subgroups are admissible. In an unpublished paper, \textit{S. Wilcox} proved that any minimal counterexample to this conjecture must be simple, and further, must be either a Tits group or a sporadic simple group. In this paper, the author improves on this result by proving that \(J_4\) is the only possible minimal counterexample to this conjecture. J. Bray reports having proved that this group is also not a counterexample, thus completing a proof of the Hall-Paige conjecture.