Diameters of finite simple groups: sharp bounds and applications (Q5953605)

Let \(G\) be a group. A subset of \(G\) which is invariant under conjugation is called a normal subset of \(G\). \(S\) is a union of conjugacy classes of \(G\) and if \(S\nsubseteq\{1\}\), then \(S\) is called non-trivial. The main result of the paper under review is the following Theorem 1.1. There exists a constant \(c\) such that if \(G\) is a finite simple group and \(S\subseteq G\) is a nontrivial normal subset, then \(S^m=G\), for any \(m\geq c(\log|G|/\log|S|)\), where \(S^m\) denotes the set of all products of length \(m\) of elements of \(S\). A few applications of Theorem 1.1 are given in the article and we will mention some of them. One important application of Theorem 1.1 concerns the diameter of the Cayley graph of a finite simple group with respect to a normal subset \(S\). If \(G\) is a finite group and \(S\) is a generating set of \(G\), then the Cayley graph \(\Gamma(G,S)\) of \(G\) with respect to \(S\) is defined to be a graph with vertex set \(G\) and \(g_1,g_2\in G\) are joined if there is \(s\in S\) such that \(g_2=g_1s\). In this way we obtain a directed graph \(\Gamma(G,S)\) whose diameter is defined to be a maximal directed distance between two vertices of \(\Gamma\), and it is denoted by \(\text{diam }\Gamma(G,S)\). Now if \(G\) is a finite simple group, it is proved as a corollary of Theorem 1.1 that there is a constant \(c\) such that whenever \(S\) is a nontrivial normal subset of \(G\), then \(\text{diam }\Gamma(G,S)\leq c(\log|G|/\log|S|)\). Other applications of Theorem 1.1 concern expressions of elements of a finite simple group as product of a certain number of involutions or in general as product of a certain number of elements of order \(k\geq 2\). Also using Theorem 1.1 an upper bound on the covering number of a finite simple group is obtained. Applications of Theorem 1.1 extend to expanders and random walks on finite simple groups. Method of proof of Theorem 1.1 is to reduce \(S\) to a single conjugacy class \(C\) and then using the classification theorem for finite simple groups. The authors concentrate on the simple groups of Lie type with large rank, because the result for the case of groups of Lie type of bounded rank is known.