Waring problem for finite quasisimple groups.

DOI10.1093/IMRN/RNS109MaRDI QIDQ5250699zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Aner Shalev, Michael Larsen, Pham Huu Tiep

Publication date 22 May 2015

Published in IMRN. International Mathematics Research Notices (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1107.3341

zbMATH Keywords

finite quasisimple groupsfinite simple groupsWaring problemword maps

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Waring's problem and variants (11P05) Representations of finite groups of Lie type (20C33) Simple groups: alternating groups and groups of Lie type (20D06) Arithmetic and combinatorial problems involving abstract finite groups (20D60) Conjugacy classes for groups (20E45) Generators, relations, and presentations of groups (20F05) Word problems, other decision problems, connections with logic and automata (group-theoretic aspects) (20F10) Commutator calculus (20F12)

Abstract: The classical Waring problem deals with expressing every natural number as a sum of g(k) kth powers. Similar problems for finite simple groups have been studied recently, and in this paper we study them for finite quasisimple groups G. We show that for a fixed non-trivial group word w and large enough G we have w(G)^3=G, namely every element of G is a product of 3 values of w. For various families of finite quasisimple groups, including covers of alternating groups, we obtain a stronger result, namely w(G)^2=G. However, in contrast with the case of simple groups, we show that w(G)^2 need not equal G for all large G. If k>2 then x^k y^k fails to be surjective for infinitely many finite quasisimple groups. The case k=2 turns out to be exceptional. Indeed, our last result shows that every element of a finite quasisimple group is a product of two squares. This can be regarded as a non-commutative analogue of Lagrange's four squares theorem.

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• Word maps with constants on symmetric groups
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• Model theory of finite and pseudofinite groups
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