Direct products of finite groups as unions of proper subgroups. (Q707536)

Let \(G\) be finite group, let \(\sigma(G)\) denote the size of a collection of least cardinality of proper subgroups of \(G\) whose union is \(G\). Such a collection is called a minimal cover for \(G\). When \(G\) is cyclic, it is clear that there is no cover for \(G\) and hence we write \(\sigma(G)=\infty\). Such covers were introduced by \textit{J. H. E. Cohn} [in Math. Scand. 75, No. 1, 44-58 (1994; Zbl 0833.20028)]. There it is proved that if \(A\) and \(B\) are finite groups, then \(\sigma(A\times B)\) does not exceed the minimum of \(\sigma(A)\) and \(\sigma(B)\) and that the equality holds if the orders of \(A\) and \(B\) are relatively prime. In the paper under review, the authors describe all the possible minimal covers of a direct product of two finite groups. They prove that if \(\mathcal M\) is a minimal cover of \(A\times B\), then \(\mathcal M\) can be obtained from minimal covers of \(A\) and \(B\) in the usual way or there exist \(A_1\trianglelefteq A\), \(B_1\trianglelefteq B\) with \(A/A_1\cong B/B_1\cong C_p\) and \(\mathcal M\) consists of maximal subgroups containing \(A_1\times B_1\). As a consequence, they deduce that either \(\sigma(A\times B)=\min\{\sigma(A),\sigma(B)\}\) or \(\sigma(A\times B)=p+1\) where the cyclic group of prime order \(p\) is a homomorphic image of both \(A\) and \(B\).