A presentation and a representation of the Held group (Q5917848)

In this note, a new presentation for the sporadic simple group \(He\) will be derived. In doing so we shall rely solely on information which can be extracted directly from \textit{D. Held}'s original paper [J. Algebra 13, 253-296 (1969; Zbl 0182.04302)]. In his 1969 article Held showed that a finite simple group having a centralizer of an involution isomorphic to the centralizer of a 2-central involution of the Mathieu group \(M_{24}\) is isomorphic to \(M_{24}\), \(L_5(2)\) or would be a group of order 4.030.387.200. The first published uniqueness proof for the latter case was done by L. Soicher in 1991. However, soon after Held's first announcement about the possible existence of a new simple group, G. Higman and J. McKay demonstrated the existence of such a group making an additional assumption. The validity of the presentation introduced here can be verified using a simple Todd-Coxeter algorithm implemented on a PC. It is straightforward to prove the uniqueness and existence for \(He\) from our result. Also basic facts about \(He\) -- such as its Schur multiplier or its automorphism group -- can be derived easily from the given presentation. The simplicity of our relations is highlighted by the use of a kind of diagram which is similar to that for the Coxeter groups. The relations are built up from three prominent local subgroups of the Held group. Finally, we exhibit explicitly an isomorphism of \(He\) into \(\text{GL}_{51}(2)\).