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László Pyber

Publications and source records attributed to László Pyber.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2024

Initiating the proof of the Liebeck--Nikolov--Shalev conjecture

Liebeck, Nikolov, and Shalev conjectured that for every subset A of a finite simple group S with |A|>1, there exist O( log|S| / log|A| ) conjugates of A whose product is S. This paper is a companion to [Lifshitz: Completing the proof of the Liebeck-Nikolov-Shalev conjecture] and together they prove the conjecture. In this paper we prove the conjecture in the regime where $|A|>|S|^c$ for an absolute constant c>0. We also prove that the following Skew Product Theorem holds for all finite simple groups. Namely we show that either the product of two conjugates of A has size at least $|A|^{1.49}$, or S is the product of boundedly many conjugates of A.

math.GR↗
arXiv2024

Growth in linear groups

We prove a conjecture of Helfgott on the structure of sets of bounded tripling in bounded rank, which states the following. Let $A$ be a finite symmetric subset of $\mathrm{GL}_n(\mathbf{F})$ for any field $\mathbf{F}$ such that $|A^3| \leq K|A|$. Then there are subgroups $H \trianglelefteq Γ\trianglelefteq \langle A \rangle$ such that $A$ is covered by $K^{O_n(1)}$ cosets of $Γ$, $Γ/H$ is nilpotent of step at most $n-1$, and $H$ is contained in $A^{O_n(1)}$. This theorem includes the Product Theorem for finite simple groups of bounded rank as a special case. As an application of our methods we also show that the diameter of sufficiently quasirandom finite linear groups is poly-logarithmic.

math.GR↗
arXiv2024

Growth of products of subsets in finite simple groups

We prove that the product of a subset and a normal subset inside any finite simple non-abelian group $G$ grows rapidly. More precisely, if $A$ and $B$ are two subsets with $B$ normal and neither of them is too large inside $G$, then $|AB| \geq |A||B|^{1-ε}$ where $ε>0$ can be taken arbitrarily small. This is a somewhat surprising strengthening of a theorem of Liebeck, Schul, Shalev.

math.GR↗
arXiv2023

On the automorphism group of a distance-regular graph

The motion of a graph is the minimal degree of its full automorphism group. Babai conjectured that the motion of a primitive distance-regular graph on $n$ vertices of diameter greater than two is at least $n/C$ for some universal constant $C > 0$, unless the graph is a Johnson or Hamming graph. We prove that the motion of a distance-regular graph of diameter $d \geq 3$ on $n$ vertices is at least $Cn/(\log n)^6$ for some universal constant $C > 0$, unless it is a Johnson, a Hamming or a crown graph. This follows using an improvement of an earlier result by Kivva who gave a lower bound on motion of the form $n/c_d$, where $c_d$ depends exponentially on $d$. As a corollary we derive a quasipolynomial upper bound for the automorphism group of a primitive distance-regular graph acting edge-transitively on the graph and on its distance-2 graph. The proofs use elementary combinatorial arguments and do not depend on the classification of finite simple groups.

math.CO↗
arXiv2023

On $p$-groups with a maximal elementary abelian normal subgroup of rank $k$

There are several results in the literature concerning $p$-groups $G$ with a maximal elementary abelian normal subgroup of rank $k$ due to Thompson, Mann and others. Following an idea of Sambale we obtain bounds for the number of generators etc. of a $2$-group $G$ in terms of $k$, which were previously known only for $p>2$. We also prove a theorem that is new even for odd primes. Namely, we show that if $G$ has a maximal elementary abelian normal subgroup of rank $k$, then for any abelian subgroup $A$ the Frattini subgroup $Φ(A)$ can be generated by $2k$ elements ($3k$ when $p=2$). The proof of this rests upon the following result of independent interest: If $V$ is an $n$-dimensional vector space, then any commutative subalgebra of End$(V)$ contains a zero algebra of codimension at most $n$.

math.GR↗
arXiv2022

Finite subgroups of the homeomorphism group of a compact topological manifold are almost nilpotent

Around twenty years ago Ghys conjectured that finite subgroups of the diffeomorphism group of a compact smooth manifold M have an abelian normal subgroup of index at most a(M), where a(M) depends only on M. First we construct a family of counterexamples to this conjecture including, for example, the product space $T^2\times S^2$. Following the first appearance of our counterexample on the arXiv Ghys put forward a revised conjecture, which predicts only the existence of a nilpotent normal subgroup of index at most n(M). Our main result is the proof of the revised Ghys conjecture. More generally, we show that the same result holds for homeomorphism groups of not necessarily compact topological manifolds with finitely generated homology groups. Our proofs are based on finite group theoretic results which provide a general strategy for proving similar Jordan-type theorems.

math.GT↗
arXiv2020

A generalization of the diameter bound of Liebeck and Shalev for finite simple groups

Let $G$ be a non-abelian finite simple group. A famous result of Liebeck and Shalev is that there is an absolute constant $c$ such that whenever $S$ is a non-trivial normal subset in $G$ then $S^{k} = G$ for any integer $k$ at least $c \cdot (\log|G|/\log|S|)$. This result is generalized by showing that there exists an absolute constant $c$ such that whenever $S_{1}, \ldots , S_{k}$ are normal subsets in $G$ with $\prod_{i=1}^{k} |S_{i}| \geq {|G|}^{c}$ then $S_{1} \cdots S_{k} = G$.

math.GR↗
arXiv2018

An improved diameter bound for finite simple groups of Lie type

For a finite group $G$, let $\mathrm{diam}(G)$ denote the maximum diameter of a connected Cayley graph of $G$. A well-known conjecture of Babai states that $\mathrm{diam}(G)$ is bounded by ${(\log_{2} |G|)}^{O(1)}$ in case $G$ is a non-abelian finite simple group. Let $G$ be a finite simple group of Lie type of Lie rank $n$ over the field $F_{q}$. Babai's conjecture has been verified in case $n$ is bounded, but it is wide open in case $n$ is unbounded. Recently, Biswas and Yang proved that $\mathrm{diam}(G)$ is bounded by $q^{O( n {(\log_{2}n + \log_{2}q)}^{3})}$. We show that in fact $\mathrm{diam}(G) < q^{O(n {(\log_{2}n)}^{2})}$ holds. Note that our bound is significantly smaller than the order of $G$ for $n$ large, even if $q$ is large. As an application, we show that more generally $\mathrm{diam}(H) < q^{O( n {(\log_{2}n)}^{2})}$ holds for any subgroup $H$ of $\mathrm{GL}(V)$, where $V$ is a vector space of dimension $n$ defined over the field $F_q$.

math.GR↗
arXiv2018

Finite groups with large Noether number are almost cyclic

Noether, Fleischmann and Fogarty proved that if the characteristic of the underlying field does not divide the order $|G|$ of a finite group $G$, then the polynomial invariants of $G$ are generated by polynomials of degrees at most $|G|$. Let $β(G)$ denote the largest indispensable degree in such generating sets. Cziszter and Domokos recently described finite groups $G$ with $|G|/β(G)$ at most $2$. We prove an asymptotic extension of their result. Namely, $|G|/β(G)$ is bounded for a finite group $G$ if and only if $G$ has a characteristic cyclic subgroup of bounded index. In the course of the proof we obtain the following surprising result. If $S$ is a finite simple group of Lie type or a sporadic group then we have $β(S) \leq {|S|}^{39/40}$. We ask a number of questions motivated by our results.

math.GR↗
arXiv2017

Normalizers of Primitive Permutation Groups

Let $G$ be a transitive normal subgroup of a permutation group $A$ of finite degree $n$. The factor group $A/G$ can be considered as a certain Galois group and one would like to bound its size. One of the results of the paper is that $|A/G| < n$ if $G$ is primitive unless $n = 3^{4}$, $5^4$, $3^8$, $5^8$, or $3^{16}$. This bound is sharp when $n$ is prime. In fact, when $G$ is primitive, $|\mathrm{Out}(G)| < n$ unless $G$ is a member of a given infinite sequence of primitive groups and $n$ is different from the previously listed integers. Many other results of this flavor are established not only for permutation groups but also for linear groups and Galois groups.

math.GR↗
arXiv2014

Diffeomorphism Groups of Compact 4-manifolds are not always Jordan

We show that if $M$ is a compact smooth manifold diffeomorphic to the total space of an orientable $S^2$ bundle over the torus $T^2$, then its diffeomorphism group does not have the Jordan property, i.e., Diff$(M)$ contains a finite subgroup $G_n$ for any natural number $n$ such that every abelian subgroup of $G_n$ has index at leat $n$. This gives a counterexample to an old conjecture of Ghys.

math.DG↗
arXiv2014

Large connected strongly regular graphs are Hamiltonian

We prove that every connected strongly regular graph on sufficiently many vertices is Hamiltonian. We prove this by showing that, apart from three families, connected strongly regular graphs are (highly) pseudo-random. Our results suggest a number of new questions and conjectures.

math.CO↗
arXiv2012

Growth in linear groups

We give a description of non-growing subsets in linear groups, which extends the Product theorem for simple groups of Lie type. We also give an account of various related aspects of growth in linear groups.

math.GR↗
arXiv2012

On the product decomposition conjecture for finite simple groups

We prove that if $G$ is a finite simple group of Lie type and $S$ a subset of $G$ of size at least two then $G$ is a product of at most $c\log|G|/\log|S|$ conjugates of $S$, where $c$ depends only on the Lie rank of $G$. This confirms a conjecture of Liebeck, Nikolov and Shalev in the case of families of simple groups of Lie type of bounded rank.

math.GR↗
arXiv2011

Growth in finite simple groups of Lie type of bounded rank

We prove that if L is a finite simple group of Lie type and A a symmetric set of generators of L, then A grows i.e |AAA| > |A|^{1+epsilon} where epsilon depends only on the Lie rank of L, or AAA=L. This implies that for a family of simple groups L of Lie type of bounded rank the diameter of any Cayley graph is polylogarithmic in |L|. We obtain a similar bound for the diameters of all Cayley graphs of perfect subgroups of GL(n,p) generated by their elements of order p. We also obtain some new families of expanders. We also prove the following partial extension. Let G be a subgroup of GL(n,p), p a prime, and S a symmetric set of generators of G satisfying |S^3|\le K|S| for some K. Then G has two normal subgroups H\ge P such that H/P is soluble, P is contained in S^6 and S is covered by K^c cosets of H where c depends on n. We obtain results of similar flavour for sets generating infinite subgroups of GL(n,F), F an arbitrary field.

math.GR↗