\(p\)-parts of character degrees and the index of the Fitting subgroup. (Q403344)

The main result of this paper is the following. Theorem. Let \(p\) be a prime and \(G\) a finite solvable group. Suppose that \(p^2\) does not divide \(\chi(1)\) for all \(\chi\in\text{Irr}(G)\). Then \(|G:F(G)|_p\leq p^2\). This bound is best possible and improves earlier work by various authors which had established the result for groups of odd order, but had only obtained an upper bound of \(p^8\) for general solvable groups. The authors also ask whether some bound exists without the solvability hypothesis. They can answer the question for \(p=2\), for which they obtain an upper bound of 8, which is attained by the alternating group \(A_7\).