Twelve sporadic groups

Publication date 27 July 1998

``Finite simple groups occur naturally in certain infinite families, but not so for all of them: the exceptions are called sporadic groups, a term used in the classic book of Burnside to refer to five Mathieu groups. There are twenty six sporadic groups, not definitely organized by any simple theme. The largest of these is the monster, the simple group of Fischer and Griess, and twenty of the sporadic groups are involved in the monster as subquotients. These twenty constitute the Happy Family, and they occur naturally in three generations. In this book, we treat the twelve sporadics in the first two generations. Table of Contents. Chapters: 1. Background from general group theory. 2. Assumed results about particular groups. 3. Codes. 4. The hexacode. 5. The Golay code. 6. Subgroups of \(M_{24}\). 7. The ternary Golay node and \(2\cdot M_{12}\). 8. Lattices. 9. The Leech lattice and Conway groups. 10. Subgroups of the Conway groups; the simple groups of Higman-Sims, McLaughlin, Hall-Janko and Suzuki; local subgroups; conjugacy classes. 11. Generation three of the Happy Family and the Pariahs. Chapter 1 lists some background from group theory. Apart of standard results this list contains such deep results as Jordan's Theorem: if a primitive group of degree \(n\) contains a \(p\)-cycle, \(p\) a prime, and \(p\leq n-3\), then \(G\) contains an alternating group of degree \(n\). Only two cited results are proved. Chapter 2 lists some assumed results about particular groups. One assumes that the reader has some familiarity with elementary homological algebra. Schur multipliers of the known simple groups are presented (this shows that the author considers the classification of finite simple groups as not finished). Tables of some first and second cohomology groups are presented. Next, several useful presentations for finite groups are given (for \(\text{PSL}(2,p)\), \(S_n\), \(A_n\), untwisted groups of Lie type of rank 2 over a field \(F\)). Chapter 3 is a review of basic material about linear error correcting codes. These objects arise naturally when trying to describe structure and representations of almost simple groups [for \(M_{24}\), see \textit{J. MacWilliams} and \textit{N. Sloane}, The theory of error-correcting codes, North-Holland, Amsterdam (1977; Zbl 0369.94008)]. The automorphism group \(\Aut^*(C)\) of a code \(C\) (or the group of \(C\)) is defined. The group \(\Aut(C)\) of (strictly) linear automorphisms of \(C\) is the set of all elements of \(\Aut^*(C)\) that are monomial transformations. Up to equivalence, there is a unique binary \([7,3,4]\)-code, the Hamming code; its group is \(\text{GL}(3,2)\), the simple group of order 168. Next, up to equivalence, there is a unique binary \([8,4,4]\)-code, called the extended Hamming code; its group is \(\text{AGL}(3,2)\). A binary Golay code is a \([24,12,8]\)-code over \(\mathbb{F}_2\). Such a code exists, it is unique up to equivalence and has a remarkable group of automorphisms. In Chapter 4, a hexacode, a linear code over \(\mathbb{F}_4\) of dimension 3, of length 6 and minimum weight 4, is investigated. The standard form of this code is defined and denoted by \(\mathcal H\). Up to equivalence, there exists two self-orthogonal codes in \(\mathbb{F}^6_4\): \(\mathcal H\) and another one which is denoted by \(C_1\). The group of \(\mathcal H\) is the unique nonsplit extension \(3\cdot S_6\). In exercises many interesting properties of \(\mathcal H\) are presented. Chapter 5 begins by exploring the relationship between the binary Golay code and the \((5,8,24)\)-Steiner system, i.e., a family \(\mathcal S\) of 8-subsets of the 24-set \(\Omega\) such that any 5-subset \(F\) in \(\Omega\) is contained in a unique \(A\in{\mathcal S}\). Elements of \(\mathcal S\) are called octads. Uniqueness of the Golay code \(\mathcal G\) is proved. Next, \(|\Aut({\mathcal G})|=2^{10}\cdot 3^3\cdot 5\cdot 7\cdot 11\cdot 23\). The group \(\Aut(G)\) is 5-transitive on \(\Omega\). The Mathieu group \(M_{24}\) is defined as the group of \(\mathcal G\). One proves that \(M_{24}\) is simple 5-transitive but not 6-transitive. Note that \(g\in S_{24}\) is contained in \(M_{24}\) if and only if \({\mathcal G}g={\mathcal G}\). In Chapter 6 some important subgroups of \(G=M_{24}\), including the maximal subgroups, are discussed. There are nine classes of maximal subgroups, only one of them, namely, \(\text{PSL}(2,23)\), is primitive. Next, the groups \(M_{12}\), \(M_{11}\), \(M_{22}\) and \(M_{23}\) are defined as subgroups of \(G\) and some of their properties are described. All these groups are simple. \(M_{11}\) is contained in \(M_{12}\) but not contained in \(M_{22}\). \(M_{12}\) has two conjugacy classes of involutions, but \(M_{22}\) and \(M_{23}\) have one class of involutions. \(M_{12}\) and \(M_{24}\) have two conjugacy classes of elements of order 3. Next, 2-rank of \(M_{24}\) is 6, and the 2-rank of \(M_{12}\) is 3. These results are useful for applications. In Chapter 7 a brief treatment of the ternary Golay code is given. This code leads to the group \(2\cdot M_{12}\), the unique representation group of \(M_{12}\). Exercises and remarks give some useful information. In Chapter 8 enough lattice theory is developed to analyze the Leech lattice and several other lattices of interest. A lattice is a free Abelian group \(L\) of finite rank with a symmetric bilinear form \(f\colon L\times L\to A\), where \(A\) is an Abelian group and \(\text{im}(f)\) is \(0\) or infinite cyclic. If \(\text{im}(f)\subseteq\mathbb{Z}\), \(L\) is called integral. The radical of \(L\) (or, more precisely, of \(f\)) is \(\{x\in L\mid f(x,L)=0\}\). The automorphism group \(\Aut(L)\) is defined as the group of those automorphisms of \(L\) as an Abelian group which preserve the bilinear form. If the form is positive definite, \(\Aut(L)\) is finite. In Chapter 9, the Leech lattice \(\Lambda\) is described and some basic information about its automorphism group is obtained. The Conway simple groups \(\cdot 1\), \(\cdot 2\) and \(\cdot 3\) are determined in the language of the Leech lattice as subquotients of its automorphism group. In Chapter 10 the involvement in \(G=Co_0=\Aut(\Lambda)\) of the simple groups of Hall-Janko, Suzuki, McLaughlin and Higman-Sims is described; here \(\Lambda\) is the Leech lattice. In addition, conjugacy classes of elements of small orders and the structure of several local subgroups are determined. The treatment of conjugacy classes is original and the treatment of the above simple groups does involve some revision. One proves that \(G\) has four conjugacy classes of elements of order 3 and they are real. The centralizers of these elements involve \(Suz\), \(\text{PSU}(4,3)\), \(\text{Sp}(4,3)\), and \(A_9\). \(McL\) has one classes of involutions and the centralizer of an involution has the form \(2\cdot A_8\). Exercises give additional interesting information. In the chapter there are six Appendices 10A-F. One of them is a review of \textit{N. Patterson}'s doctoral thesis (1974). There are, in Appendix 10F, 18 character tables. In Appendix 10D some errors noted in the first atlas of finite groups are corrected. In Chapter 11, the construction of the remaining fourteen sporadic simple groups is sketched. I cite: ``The classification of finite simple groups was announced by Gorenstein in January of 1981. This was a bit optimistic since proofs of some outstanding cases existed only in manuscript form and not every one of these was submitted promptly. Despite this delay in resolution, most finite group theorists continue to believe that the program to classify the simple groups is sound. The author writes that most of the book is accessible to someone with a basic graduate course in abstract algebra and a little experience with group theory, especially with permutation groups and matrix algebra. However, in many places, the reader must have a considerable knowledge in coding theory, but only small parts of group theorists are familiar with deep results of that theory. Next, the review of Chapter 2 shows that the reader of this book must be a fairly experienced mathematician. There are many misprints in the Index; in many cases it gives incorrect pages. The reviewed book is at least the fourth one on sporadics [see, for example, \textit{M. Aschbacher}, Overgroups of Sylow subgroups in sporadic groups (Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 343) (1986; Zbl 0585.20005); \textit{M. Aschbacher}, Sporadic groups, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge (1994; Zbl 0804.20011)]. The author wrote a very interesting and valuable book. Of course, the book does not exhaust the theme (some of the considered groups deserve a separate book), but it can be a basis for further books about the groups considered. Group theorists are interested in the following additional information on sporadics: Sylow structure, maximum of ranks of primary subgroups, maximal nilpotent and solvable subgroups, local subgroups, structure of the centralizers of elements and so on.

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