Maximal intersections in finite groups

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Abstract: For a finite group G, we investigate the behaviour of four invariants, extMaxDim(G), extMinDim(G), extMaxInt(G) and extMinInt(G), measuring in some way the width and the height of the lattice mathcalM(G) consisting of the intersections of the maximal subgroups of G.


The aim of this paper is to analyse some invariants of the lattice \(\mathcal{M}(G)\) composed of the intersections of maximal subgroups of a finite group~\(G\). The invariants considered are the maximal dimension \(\operatorname{MaxDim}(G)\), which is the maximal size of an irredundant set of maximal subgroups of~\(G\) (in the sense that no proper subset gives the same intersection), the minimal size \(\operatorname{MinDim}(G)\) of a maximal irredundant set of maximal subgroups of~\(G\), and the minimal and maximal lengths \(\operatorname{MinInt}(G)\) and \(\operatorname{MaxInt}(G)\), respectively, of an unrefinable chain in \(\mathcal{M}(G)\). The finite groups \(G\) with \(\operatorname{MinDim}(G)=\operatorname{MaxDim}(G)\) are called \textit{minmax} groups. In Theorem~3, it is proved that for a finite group~\(G\), \(\operatorname{MinDim}(G)\le \operatorname{MinInt}(G)\) and \(\operatorname{MaxDim}(G)\le \operatorname{MaxInt}(G)\), but in Section~2 it is shown that for any pair \((a,b)\) of positive integers with \(2\le a\le b\), there is a group \(G\) with \(\operatorname{MinDim}(G)=\operatorname{MaxDim}(G)=a+b\), \(\operatorname{MinInt}(G)=2a+b\), \(\operatorname{MaxInt}(G)=a+2b\). Finite groups \(G\) with \(\operatorname{MaxDim}(G)=\operatorname{MinInt}(G)\) are called \textit{strongly minmax}. For a finite group \(G\), \(\alpha(G)\) denotes the smallest cardinality of a family of maximal subgroups of~\(G\) whose intersection coincides with the Frattini subgroup of \(G\). Groups for which \(\operatorname{MinInt}(G)=\operatorname{MaxInt}(G)=\alpha(G)\) are called \textit{weakly minmax}. Theorem~7 shows that every finite weakly minmax group is soluble and the derived length of its Frattini quotient is at most~\(3\). The paper also gives some negative answers to some natural questions, like in the case we have a normal subgroup \(N\) of a finite group \(G\), \(\delta=\operatorname{MaxDim}(G/N)\), \(d=\operatorname{MaxDim}(G)\) and \(\{M_1/N,\dots, M_\delta/N\}\) is an irredundant set of maximal subgroups of \(G/N\), whether there exist \(d-\delta\) maximal subgroups \(M_{\delta+1},\dots, M_d\) of \(G\) such that \(\{M_1,\dots, M_\delta, M_{\delta+1},\dots, M_\delta\}\) is an irredundant set of maximal subgroups of~\(G\), a question that is still open in the soluble universe, or whether the Frattini subgroup can be expressed as an intersection of an irredundant family of \(\operatorname{MaxDim}(G)\) maximal subgroups whose intersection is the Frattini subgroup of~\(G\). Another question posed in this paper is the existence of a finite soluble group~\(G\) with the property that \(m(G)>\operatorname{MinInt}(G)\), where \(m(G)\) is the maximum size of an irredundant generating set of~\(G\). This question has been solved negatively for soluble groups with Fitting length at most~\(2\).











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