Characteristic covering numbers of finite simple groups (Q6184758)

The purpose of this paper is the study of word maps in (non-abelian) finite simple groups. An important result in this line of research has been obtained by \textit{M. W. Liebeck} et al. [J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS) 12, No. 4, 939--1008 (2010; Zbl 1205.20011)] (see also [\textit{E. W. Ellers} and \textit{N. Gordeev}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 350, No. 9, 3657--3671 (1998; Zbl 0910.20007)]) who showed that the commutator map is surjective on all finite simple groups, proving the Ore conjecture. A collection of non-empty subsets \(S(G)\subseteq G\), one for each finite group \(G\), is characteristic if for every homomorphism \(\phi: G \rightarrow H\) we have \(\phi(S(G)) \subseteq S(H)\). A characteristic collection \(S\) is ample if \(|S(G)| \geq 2\) for all finite simple groups \(G\). The characteristic covering number \(\mathsf{ccn}(G)\) of a finite group \(G\) is the smallest integer \(n\) such that if \(S_{1}, \ldots, S_{n}\) are ample characteristic collections, then \(S_{1}(G)\cdot \ldots \cdot S_{n}(G)=G\) (if no such \(n\) exists then \(\mathsf{ccn}(G)=\infty\)). The main result proved by the authors is Theorem A: If \(G\) is a finite simple group, then \(\mathsf{ccn}(G) \leq 6\). Applying Theorem A for characteristic collections associated with words, they immediately obtain the following two consequences. Theorem B: If \(w_{1}, \ldots , w_{6}\) are words in disjoint letters and none of the \(w_{i}\) is an identity on any finite simple group, then the juxtaposition \(w_{1} \ldots w_{6}\) is surjective on every finite simple group. Corollary C. If \(w\) is a word which is not an identity on any finite simple group, then \(w(G)^{6} = G\) for every finite simple group \(G\). The condition that none of the \(w_{i}\) (or \(w\)) is an identity on any finite simple group in Theorem B and Corollary C is necessary. As shown in [\textit{M. Kassabov} and \textit{N. M. Nikolov}, Q. J. Math. 64, No. 4, 1161--1166 (2013; Zbl 1296.20037); \textit{R. M. Guralnick} and the third author, Am. J. Math. 137, No. 5, 1401--1430 (2015; Zbl 1338.20009)], for any integer \(N\), there exist a word \(w\) and a finite simple group \(G\) such that \(w(G)\not =1\) and \(w(G)^{N} \not = G\). The authors prove a further interesting result, namely Theorem E: Let \(G\) be a finite simple group. Then \(\mathsf{ccn}(G) \leq 4\) unless \(G\) is a group of Lie type \(X_{r}(q)\) where \(q \leq f(r)\) for a suitable function \(f\).