Words, permutations, and the nonsolvable length of a finite group

DOI10.4171/JCA/51arXiv1904.02370MaRDI QIDQ6316672FDOQ6316672

Authors: Alexander Bors, Aner Shalev 

Publication date: 4 April 2019

Abstract: We study the impact of certain identities and probabilistic identities on the structure of finite groups. More specifically, let $w$ be a nontrivial word in $d$ distinct variables and let $G$ be a finite group for which the word map $w_G:G^{d}ightarrowG$ has a fiber of size at least $ho|G{|}^d$ for some fixed $ho>0$. We show that, for certain words $w$, this implies that $G$ has a normal solvable subgroup of index bounded above in terms of $w$ and $ho$. We also show that, for a larger family of words $w$, this implies that the nonsolvable length of $G$ is bounded above in terms of $w$ and $ho$, thus providing evidence in favor of a conjecture of Larsen. Along the way we obtain results of some independent interest, showing roughly that most elements of large finite permutation groups have large support.

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

General theory for finite permutation groups (20B05) Finite simple groups and their classification (20D05) Word problems, other decision problems, connections with logic and automata (group-theoretic aspects) (20F10) Probabilistic methods in group theory (20P05) Other classes of groups defined by subgroup chains (20F22)

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