We introduce the concept of almost $\mathcal {P}$-numbers where $\mathcal {P}$ is a class of groups. We survey the existing results in the literature for almost cyclic numbers, and give characterisations for almost abelian and almost nilpotent numbers proving these two concepts are equivalent.

For any prime p and S a p-group isomorphic to a Sylow p-subgroup of a rank $2$ simple group of Lie type in characteristic p, we determine all saturated fusion systems supported on S up to isomorphism.

Assume that G is a finite group, N is a nontrivial normal subgroup of G and p is an odd prime. Let $\mathrm{Irr}_p(G)=\{\chi \in \mathrm{Irr}(G) : \chi (1)=1~\mathrm{or}~ p \mid \chi (1)\}$ and $\mathrm{Irr}_p(G|N)=\{\chi \in \mathrm{Irr}_p(G) : N \not \leq \mathrm{ker}\,\chi \}$. The average character degree of irreducible characters of $\mathrm{Irr}_p(G)$ and the average character degree of irreducible characters of $\mathrm{Irr}_p(G|N)$ are denoted by $\mathrm{acd}_p(G)$ and $\mathrm{acd}_p(G|N)$, respectively. We show that if $\mathrm{Irr}_p(G|N) \neq \emptyset $ and $\mathrm{acd}_p(G|N) < \mathrm{acd}_p(\mathrm{PSL}_2(p))$, then G is p-solvable and $O^{p'}(G)$ is solvable. We find examples that make this bound best possible. Moreover, we see that if $\mathrm{Irr}_p(G|N) = \emptyset $, then N is p-solvable and $P \cap N$ and $PN/N$ are abelian for every $P \in \mathrm{Syl}_p(G)$.

A subgroup H of a group G is said to be pronormal in G if each of its conjugates $H^g$ in G is already conjugate to it in the subgroup $\langle H,H^g\rangle $. The aim of this paper is to classify those (locally) finite simple groups which have only nilpotent or pronormal subgroups.

For a finite abelian p-group A and a subgroup $\Gamma \le \operatorname {\mathrm {Aut}}(A)$, we say that the pair $(\Gamma ,A)$ is fusion realizable if there is a saturated fusion system ${\mathcal {F}}$ over a finite p-group $S\ge A$ such that $C_S(A)=A$, $\operatorname {\mathrm {Aut}}_{{\mathcal {F}}}(A)=\Gamma $ as subgroups of $\operatorname {\mathrm {Aut}}(A)$, and . In this paper, we develop tools to show that certain representations are not fusion realizable in this sense. For example, we show, for $p=2$ or $3$ and $\Gamma $ one of the Mathieu groups, that the only ${\mathbb {F}}_p\Gamma $-modules that are fusion realizable (up to extensions by trivial modules) are the Todd modules and in some cases their duals.

We show that the only finite quasi-simple non-abelian groups that can faithfully act on rationally connected threefolds are the following groups: ${\mathfrak{A}}_5$ , ${\text{PSL}}_2(\textbf{F}_7)$ , ${\mathfrak{A}}_6$ , ${\text{SL}}_2(\textbf{F}_8)$ , ${\mathfrak{A}}_7$ , ${\text{PSp}}_4(\textbf{F}_3)$ , ${\text{SL}}_2(\textbf{F}_{7})$ , $2.{\mathfrak{A}}_5$ , $2.{\mathfrak{A}}_6$ , $3.{\mathfrak{A}}_6$ or $6.{\mathfrak{A}}_6$ . All of these groups with a possible exception of $2.{\mathfrak{A}}_6$ and $6.{\mathfrak{A}}_6$ indeed act on some rationally connected threefolds.

The codegree of an irreducible character $\chi $ of a finite group G is $|G : \ker \chi |/\chi (1)$. We show that the Ree group ${}^2G_2(q)$, where $q = 3^{2f+1}$, is determined up to isomorphism by its set of codegrees.

Let q be a nontrivial odd prime power, and let $n \ge 2$ be a natural number with $(n,q) \ne (2,3)$ . We characterize the groups $PSL_n(q)$ and $PSU_n(q)$ by their $2$ -fusion systems. This contributes to a programme of Aschbacher aiming at a simplified proof of the classification of finite simple groups.

Let $G$ be a finite group. An element $g \in G$ is called a vanishing element in $G$ if there exists an irreducible character $\chi$ of $G$ such that $\chi (g)=0$. The size of a conjugacy class of $G$ containing a vanishing element is called a vanishing conjugacy class size of $G$. In this paper, we give an affirmative answer to the problem raised by Bianchi, Camina, Lewis and Pacifici about the solvability of finite groups with exactly one vanishing conjugacy class size.

We show that the automorphism group of a linking system associated to a saturated fusion system $\mathcal {F}$ depends only on $\mathcal {F}$ as long as the object set of the linking system is $\mathrm {Aut}(\mathcal {F})$ -invariant. This was known to be true for linking systems in Oliver’s definition, but we demonstrate that the result holds also for linking systems in the considerably more general definition introduced previously by the author of this article. A similar result is proved for linking localities, which are group-like structures corresponding to linking systems. Our argument builds on a general lemma about the existence of an extension of a homomorphism between localities. This lemma is also used to reprove a theorem of Chermak showing that there is a natural bijection between the sets of partial normal subgroups of two possibly different linking localities over the same fusion system.

L'analyse de la démonstration par contradiction de Frécon 2018 qui est faite dans Poizat 2018 met en évidence la structure symétrique des groupes de rang de Morley fini sans involutions; en effet, cette démonstration consiste en la construction d'un espace symétrique de dimension deux (“un plan”), puis à montrer que ce plan ne peut exister.

Aux sous-espaces symétriques définissables de ces groupes sont associées des symétries et des transvexions, qu'on entreprend d'étudier ici dans l'abstrait, sans référence à un groupe qui les enveloppe; cela nous mène à considérer des structures introduites axiomatiquement que nous appelons symétrons (plutôt qu'ensembles symétriques diadiques, comme les ont nommées Lawson & Lim 2004).

Le $Z^*$ -Theorem de Glauberman permet d'élucider complètement la structure des symétrons finis: chacun est isomorphe à l'ensemble des symétries associées à un sous-espace symétrique d'un groupe fini sans involutions, qui est loin d'être uniquement déterminé: de fait, il existe des groupes finis non isomorphes qui ont les mêmes symétries, et aussi des symétrons finis qui ne sont pas isomorphes aux symétries d'un groupe,

La situation est plus incertaine dans le cas des symétrons de rang de Morley fini, ou même algébriques, qui sont l'objet d'étude principal de cet article. Mais bien qu'un symétron soit une structure nettement plus faible qu'un groupe, nous pouvons étendre aux symétrons des résultats bien connus à propos des groupes de rang de Morley fini: condition de chaîne, décomposition en composantes connexes, caractérisation des parties définissables génériques, génération elliptique, etc. Ces propriétés sont nouvelles même dans le cas des sous-espaces symétriques d’un groupe, et permettent de court-circuiter les calculs de Frécon dans la construction de son plan paradoxal.

En outre, sous l'hypothèse de la Conjecture d'Algébricité, nous généralisons le Théorème de Glauberman au contexte de rang de Morley fini.

For any given subgroup H of a finite group G, the Quillen poset ${\mathcal {A}}_p(G)$ of nontrivial elementary abelian p-subgroups is obtained from ${\mathcal {A}}_p(H)$ by attaching elements via their centralisers in H. We exploit this idea to study Quillen’s conjecture, which asserts that if ${\mathcal {A}}_p(G)$ is contractible then G has a nontrivial normal p-subgroup. We prove that the original conjecture is equivalent to the ${{\mathbb {Z}}}$-acyclic version of the conjecture (obtained by replacing ‘contractible’ by ‘${{\mathbb {Z}}}$-acyclic’). We also work with the ${\mathbb {Q}}$-acyclic (strong) version of the conjecture, reducing its study to extensions of direct products of simple groups of p-rank at least $2$. This allows us to extend results of Aschbacher and Smith and to establish the strong conjecture for groups of p-rank at most $4$.

For a character $\chi $ of a finite group G, the number $\chi ^c(1)={[G:{\textrm {ker}}\chi ]}/{\chi (1)}$ is called the co-degree of $\chi $ . A finite group G is an ${\textrm {NDAC}} $ -group (no divisibility among co-degrees) when $\chi ^c(1) \nmid \phi ^c(1)$ for all irreducible characters $\chi $ and $\phi $ of G with $1< \chi ^c(1) < \phi ^c(1)$ . We study finite groups admitting an irreducible character whose co-degree is a given prime p and finite nonsolvable ${\textrm {NDAC}} $ -groups. Then we show that the finite simple groups $^2B_2(2^{2f+1})$ , where $f\geq 1$ , $\mbox {PSL}_3(4)$ , ${\textrm {Alt}}_7$ and $J_1$ are determined uniquely by the set of their irreducible character co-degrees.

A finite group whose irreducible complex characters are rational-valued is called a rational group. The aim of this paper is to determine the rational almost simple and rational quasi-simple groups.

For a finite group $G$, let $d(G)$ denote the minimal number of elements required to generate $G$. In this paper, we prove sharp upper bounds on $d(H)$ whenever $H$ is a maximal subgroup of a finite almost simple group. In particular, we show that $d(H)\leqslant 5$ and that $d(H)\geqslant 4$ if and only if $H$ occurs in a known list. This improves a result of Burness, Liebeck and Shalev. The method involves the theory of crowns in finite groups.

Let $G$ be a finite group and $p$ be an odd prime. We show that if $\mathbf{O}_{p}(G)=1$ and $p^{2}$ does not divide every irreducible $p$-Brauer character degree of $G$, then $|G|_{p}$ is bounded by $p^{3}$ when $p\geqslant 5$ or $p=3$ and $\mathsf{A}_{7}$ is not involved in $G$, and by $3^{4}$ if $p=3$ and $\mathsf{A}_{7}$ is involved in $G$.

We finish the classification, begun in two earlier papers, of all simple fusion systems over finite nonabelian p-groups with an abelian subgroup of index p. In particular, this gives many new examples illustrating the enormous variety of exotic examples that can arise. In addition, we classify all simple fusion systems over infinite nonabelian discrete p-toral groups with an abelian subgroup of index p. In all of these cases (finite or infinite), we reduce the problem to one of listing all 𝔽pG-modules (for G finite) satisfying certain conditions: a problem which was solved in the earlier paper [15] using the classification of finite simple groups.

In response to questions by Kassabov, Nikolov and Shalev, we show that a given subset A of a finite simple group G is the image of some word map w : G × G → G if and only if (i) A contains the identity and (ii) A is invariant under Aut(G).

We identify the groups ${\text{PSU} }_{6} (2)$, ${\text{PSU} }_{6} (2){: }2$, ${\text{PSU} }_{6} (2){: }3$ and $\text{Aut} ({\text{PSU} }_{6} (2))$ from the structure of the centralizer of an element of order three.