Determination of conjugacy class sizes from products of characters.

DOI10.1007/S00013-012-0473-0MaRDI QIDQ1936508zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Ivan Andrus, Pál Hegedűs

Publication date 5 February 2013

Published in Archiv der Mathematik (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1209.3620

zbMATH Keywords

character degreescharacter multiplicitiesconjugacy class sizesconjugacy classesfinite groupsirreducible charactersproducts of characters

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Ordinary representations and characters (20C15) Arithmetic and combinatorial problems involving abstract finite groups (20D60) Conjugacy classes for groups (20E45)

Abstract: Robinson showed that the character degrees are determined by knowing, for all $n$, the number of ways that the identity can be expressed as a product of $n$ commutators. Earlier, Strunkov showed that the existence of characters of $p$-defect 0 can be determined by counting solutions to certain equations involving commutators and conjugates. In this paper, we prove analogs to Robinson's and Strunkov's theorems by switching conjugacy classes and characters. We show that counting the multiplicity of the trivial character in certain products of characters determines the conjugacy class sizes and existence of conjugacy classes with $p$-defect 0.

Review text

Motivated by a result of Robinson that shows that the character degrees of a finite group \(G\) can be determined by knowing the order of \(G\) and the number of ways the identity of \(G\) can be expressed as a product of commutators in \(G\), the authors prove analogous results by swapping the roles of character degrees and conjugacy class sizes. Namely, they show that the order of \(G\) and the multiplicity of the trivial character in \(\pi^n\), where \(\pi\) is the permutation character of \(G\), determines the conjugacy class sizes of \(G\). Their proof is elementary and different to that of Robinson. A conjugacy class \(\mathcal K\) has \(p\)-defect 0 if \(|\mathcal K|_p=|G|_p\). The authors' second theorem says that \(G\) has a conjugacy class of \(p\)-defect 0 if and only if there exists an irreducible character \(\varphi\) of \(G\) and a natural number \(n\geq 2\) such that the multiplicity of \(\varphi\) in \(\pi^n\) is not divisible by \(p\). This is an analog of a result of Strunkov which identifies when \(G\) has a \(p\)-block of defect 0 by counting solutions of elementary functions modulo \(p\). In this case the authors' proof is similar to that of Strunkov. In both theorems slightly different counting yields information about real conjugacy classes. A nicely written, thought-provoking paper.

Recommendations

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• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1118052
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Cites work

• A Criterion for a Group to be Nilpotent
• Characters and the commutator map.
• Computing the order of the nilpotent residual of a finite group from knowledge of its group algebra
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 4217165 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3526920 (Why is no real title available?)

Cited in

(3)

• Defect groups, conjugacy classes and the Robinson map.
• Retrieving information about a group from its character degrees or from its class sizes
• Characters and the commutator map.

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