Common zeros of irreducible characters (Q6622307)

The authors study the question: when do two non-linear irreducible characters of a finite group have a common zero? It is shown that in the symmetric group on \(n\geq 8\) elements, with one exception, any two nonlinear irreducible characters have at least one common zero. For a finite group \(G\) in general, let \(\Gamma_v(G)\) be the graph whose vertices are the nonlinear irreducible characters of \(G\), and two characters are joined by an edge if they have a common zero in \(G\). It is shown that for solvable groups \(G\), the graph \(\Gamma_v(G)\) has at most two connected components, and for simple groups, \(\Gamma_v(G)\) has at most three connected components. It is conjectured that this holds for all finite groups. The authors also discuss connections between \(\Gamma_v(G)\) and the common-divisor graph \(\Gamma(G)\), where two irreducible characters (as vertices) are joined by an edge if their degrees are not coprime.