Groups with three real valued irreducible characters. (Q926418)

It is well-known that groups of odd order have exactly one (irreducible) real valued character, and \textit{S. Iwasaki} [Arch. Math. 33, 512-517 (1980; Zbl 0433.20014)] characterized the finite groups with two real valued characters. Continuing this line of investigation, in the paper under review it is shown that a group with at most three real-valued ordinary irreducible characters has a cyclic Sylow 2-subgroup or a normal Sylow 2-subgroup that is homocyclic, quaternion of order 8, or an iterated central extension of a Suzuki 2-group whose center is an elementary Abelian 2-group. Various examples are provided that show that in a sense the conclusion of the result cannot be strengthened.