On Sims' presentation for Lyons' simple group (Q4270318)

\textit{G. Havas} and \textit{C. C. Sims} in Chapter 14 of these proceedings [see the preceding review Zbl 0936.20011] show that the group presented by a certain set of generators and relations has a subgroup \(G_2(5)\) of index 8 835 156, and therefore has order equal to that of the Lyons group. Here the existence proof for the Lyons group is completed, using the corresponding permutation representation on 8 835 156 points. First the authors find a subgroup isomorphic to \(2\cdot A_{11}\), and verify this with the Schur presentation. Using the trivial observation that (since all relevant transitivity conditions are satisfied) the order of the involution centralizer is equal to the number of fixed points of the involution, times the order of the involution centralizer inside the point stabilizer, it is immediate that \(2\cdot A_{11}\) is the full involution centralizer, and hence this is the Lyons group. Note: Some simplification to this proof seems possible. It is not necessary to use a base and strong generating set in the permutation representation on 9 606 125 points in order to find the subgroup \(2\cdot A_{11}\) -- easy random methods, or a simple application of \textit{Bray}'s algorithm [An improved method for finding the centralizer of an involution, Arch. Math. (to appear)], will produce generators in a fraction of the time. The appeal to character theory, rather than the orbit-stabilizer theorem, for the observation about involution centralizers (Lemma 13.3) is pure obfuscation. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0920.00022].