Cartan matrices and Brauer's \(k(B)\)-conjecture. II. (Q657992)

This paper continues the author's earlier work in part I [\textit{B. Sambale}, J. Algebra 331, No. 1, 416-427 (2011; Zbl 1230.20010)] and uses this to obtain some more results on Brauer's \(k(B)\)-conjecture. In particular, this conjecture is proved if the defect group contains a central, cyclic subgroup of index at most 9. As a consequence, the conjecture holds for 3-blocks of defect at most 3. It is also shown that the \(k(B)\)-conjecture holds for 2-blocks of defect 5 except possibly the central product of \(D_8\) by itself. (This work ultimately depends on CFSG.) There is also a discussion of an example illustrating the limits of the methods used in the paper. Some proofs are computational in nature and depend on calculations performed with GAP.