Nielsen equivalence of generating pairs of \(\mathrm{SL}(2,q)\). (Q2845568)

Two ordered pairs of elements of a group \(K\) are called equivalent if they are related by a sequence of operations of replacing one element of the pair by one of its two products with the other element or its inverse. Equivalence restricts to an equivalence relation on the set of generating pairs of \(K\), called Nielsen equivalence. The set of Nielsen classes will be denoted by \(\mathcal N\). For an element \(x\in K\) the extended conjugacy class of \(x\) is the union of the conjugacy classes of \(x\) and \(x^{-1}\). Let \(\mathcal E\) be the set of extended conjugacy classes of \(K\).NEWLINENEWLINE The authors investigate the case \(K=\mathrm{SL}(2,q)\).NEWLINENEWLINE The classification conjecture states that \(\mathcal N\to\mathcal E\) is injective. The authors verify this conjecture for \(q\leq 101\) using GAP. They give a number of related conjectures, and they investigate the area around the classification conjecture thoroughly.