arXiv subjects

Thomas Michael Keller

Publications and source records attributed to Thomas Michael Keller.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

5-cycles in the complement of minimal prime graphs

Minimal prime graphs (MPGs) are a special class of prime graphs (also known as Gruenberg-Kegel graphs) associated with finite solvable groups. A graph is an MPG if it has at least two vertices, is connected, its complement is triangle-free and 3-colorable, and the addition of an edge to the complement will violate triangle-freeness or 3-colorability. In this paper, we continue the study of the complements of MPGs focusing on their cycle structure. Our main result establishes that every edge in the complement of an MPG is contained in a 5-cycle. This finding is a much stronger form of an older result stating that every minimal prime graph complement contains at least one induced 5-cycle.

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arXiv2025

Degree 2 vertices in minimal prime graph complements

Minimal prime graphs are connected graphs on at least two vertices whose complements satisfy the following conditions: triangle-freeness, 3-colorability, and edge-maximality with respect to the latter two properties. These graphs are prime graphs (or Gruenberg-Kegel graphs) of finite solvable groups with the maximum number of Frobenius actions among their Sylow subgroups, and as such minimal prime graph complements have been shown to be highly structured, including, for instance, the presence of induced 5-cycles. It is also known that the minimum degree of minimal prime graph complements is 2. In this note, we show that the existence of a degree 2 vertex in a minimal prime graph complement determines its whole structure: it is simply a 5-cycle with three vertices, exactly two of which are adjacent to each other, being duplicated finitely often. In particular, such graphs belong to a class of graphs known as reseminant.

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arXiv2025

Realizing Gruenberg-Kegel graphs of $T$-solvable groups with structurally simplified extensions of $T$

Given a finite group $G$, its prime graph $Γ(G)$ (also known as its Gruenberg-Kegel graph) is the graph whose vertices are the prime divisors of $|G|$ and where edges $\{p, q\}$ exist whenever $G$ contains an element of order $pq$. We continue the study of prime graphs for $T$-solvable groups; that is, groups whose composition factors are either abelian or isomorphic to some fixed non-abelian simple group $T$. For a large class of non-abelian simple groups $T$, we prove that the prime graph complements of $T$-solvable groups are always realizable by a solvable group and a quasi simple or almost simple $T$-solvable group acting by automorphisms on a direct product of elementary abelian groups. We conjecture that a similar result holds in full generality. Moreover, we apply our result to classify in purely graph-theoretic terms the prime graph complements of $\operatorname{PSL}(2,13)$-solvable groups, and indicate other interesting classes of groups matching the assumptions of our main theorem.

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arXiv2025

Criteria for Classifying Prime Graphs of PSL(2, q)-Solvable Groups

For a finite group $G$, the prime graph $Γ(G)$ (also known as Gruenberg-Kegel graph) is defined to be the graph where the vertices are the primes that divide $|G|$ such that two vertices $p$ and $q$ share an edge if and only if there is an element of order $pq$ in $G$. The prime graphs of solvable groups have been classified. The prime graphs of groups whose noncyclic composition factors are isomorphic to a single nonabelian simple group $T$ where $|T|$ is divisible by three or four distinct primes have been classified except for the cases where $T = \operatorname{PSL}(2,q)$ for $q\neq 2^5$ and $|\operatorname{PSL}(2,q)|$ is divisible by exactly four primes. In this paper, we provide criteria for general classification results for certain classes of $T$, and then use them to classify the prime graphs of some $T$-solvable groups for $T$ a suitably small $\operatorname{PSL}(2, q)$-group. We also provide general results on the prime graphs of $T$-solvable groups where $T$ is a member of the possibly infinite family of groups $\operatorname{PSL}(2, 2^f)$ such that $f\geq 5, f$ is prime, and $|\operatorname{PSL}(2, 2^f)|$ is divisible by exactly four primes. This is the first paper to prove general results about the prime graphs of $T$-solvable groups where $T$ belongs to a large (probably infinite) family of groups.

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arXiv2025

More on Landau's theorem and Conjugacy Classes

In this paper we present two new results on the number of certain conjugacy classes of a finite group. For a finite group $G$, let $n(G)$ be the maximum of $k_{p}(G)$ taken over all primes $p$ where $k_{p}(G)$ denotes the number of conjugacy classes of nontrivial $p$-elements in $G$. Using a recent theorem of Giudici, Morgan and Praeger, we prove that there exists a function $f(x)$ with $f(x) \to \infty$ as $x \to \infty$ such that $n(G) \geq f(|G|)$ for any finite group $G$. Let $G$ be a finite group, and let $p$ be a prime dividing $|G|$. Let $k_{p'}(G)$ denote the number of conjugacy classes of elements of $G$ whose orders are coprime to $p$. We show that either $p=11$ and $G=C_{11}^2\rtimes \text{\rm SL}(2,5)$, or there exists a factorization $p-1 = ab$ with $a$ and $b$ positive integers, such that $k_{p}(G) \geq a$ and $k_{p'}(G) \geq b$ with equalities in both cases if and only if $G=C_p \rtimes C_b$ with $C_G(C_p) = C_p$.

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arXiv2024

Classification of the Prime Graphs of $\operatorname{Sz}(8)$-, $\operatorname{Sz}(32)$-, and $\operatorname{PSL}(2, 2^5)$-Solvable Groups

For a finite group $G$, the vertices of the prime graph $Γ(G)$ are the primes that divide $|G|$, and two vertices $p$ and $q$ are connected by an edge if there is an element of order $pq$ in $G$. Prime graphs of solvable groups have been classified, and prime graphs of groups whose noncyclic composition factors are isomorphic to a single nonabelian simple group $T$ have been classified in the case where $T$ has order divisible by exactly three or four distinct primes, except for the cases $T = \operatorname{Sz}(8)$, $T = \operatorname{Sz}(32)$, and $T = \operatorname{PSL}(2,q)$, which in some sense are the hardest cases. In this paper, we complete the classification for $T = \operatorname{Sz}(32)$, $T = \operatorname{Sz}(8)$, and $T = \operatorname{PSL}(2,2^5)$, with the latter two being the first cases ever studied where $|\text{Out}(T)|$ has prime factors which do not divide $|T|$. The groups studied in this paper are also the first ones requiring knowledge of their Brauer character tables to complete the classification task.

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arXiv2024

Classifying prime graphs of finite groups -- a methodical approach

For a finite group $G$, the vertices of the prime graph $Γ(G)$ are the primes that divide $|G|$, and two vertices $p$ and $q$ are connected by an edge if and only if there is an element of order $pq$ in $G$. Prime graphs of solvable groups as well as groups whose noncyclic composition factors have order divisible by exactly three distinct primes have been classified in graph-theoretic terms. In this paper, we begin to develop a general theory on the existence of edges in the prime graph of an arbitrary $T$-solvable group, that is, a group whose composition factors are cyclic or isomorphic to a fixed nonabelian simple group $T$. We then apply these results to classify the prime graphs of $T$-solvable groups for, in a suitable sense, most $T$ such that $|T|$ has exactly four prime divisors. We find that these groups almost always have a 3-colorable prime graph complement containing few possible triangles.

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arXiv2023

A new lower bound for the number of conjugacy classes

In 2003, Héthelyi and Külshammer proposed that if $G$ is a finite group and $p$ is a prime dividing the group order, then $k(G)\geq 2\sqrt{p-1}$, and they proved this conjecture for solvable $G$ and showed that it is sharp for those primes $p$ for which $\sqrt{p-1}$ is an integer. This initiated a flurry of activity, leading to many generalizations and variations of the result; in particular, today the conjecture is known to be true for all finite groups. In this note, we put forward a natural new and stronger conjecture, which is sharp for all primes $p$, and we prove it for solvable groups, and when $p$ is large, also for arbitrary groups.

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arXiv2023

Prime divisors and the number of conjugacy classes of finite groups

We prove that there exists a universal constant $D$ such that if $p$ is a prime divisor of the index of the Fitting subgroup of a finite group $G$, then the number of conjugacy classes of G is at least $Dp/log_2 p$. We conjecture that we can take $D=1$ and prove that for solvable groups, we can take $D=1/3$.

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arXiv2022

The Prime Graphs of Groups With Arithmetically Small Composition Factors

We continue the study of prime graphs of finite groups, also known as Gruenberg-Kegel graphs. The vertices of the prime graph of a finite group are the prime divisors of the group order, and two vertices $p$ and $q$ are connected by an edge if and only if there is an element of order $pq$ in the group. Prime graphs of solvable groups have been characterized in graph theoretical terms only, as have been the prime graphs of groups whose only nonsolvable composition factor is $A_5$. In this paper we classify the prime graphs of all groups whose composition factors have arithmetically small orders, that is, have no more than three prime divisors in their orders. We find that all such graphs have $3$-colorable complements, and we provide full characterizations of the prime graphs of such groups based on the exact type and multiplicity of the nonabelian composition factors of the group.

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arXiv2022

A classification of prime graphs of pseudo-solvable groups

The prime graph $Γ(G)$ of a finite group $G$ (also known as the Gruenberg-Kegel graph) has as its vertices the prime divisors of $|G|$, and $p\text-q$ is an edge in $Γ(G)$ if and only if $G$ has an element of order $pq$. Since their inception in the 1970s these graphs have been studied extensively; however, completely classifying the possible prime graphs for larger families of groups remains a difficult problem. For solvable groups such a classification was found in 2015. In this paper we go beyond solvable groups for the first time and characterize prime graphs of a more general class of groups we call pseudo-solvable. These are groups whose composition factors are either cyclic or $A_5$. The classification is based on two conditions: the vertices $\{2,3,5\}$ form a triangle in $\overlineΓ(G)$ or $\{p,3,5\}$ form a triangle for some prime $p\neq 2$.

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arXiv2022

New bounds for numbers of primes in element orders of finite groups

Let $ρ(n)$ denote the maximal number of different primes that may occur in the order of a finite solvable group $G$, all elements of which have orders divisible by at most $n$ distinct primes. We show that $ρ(n)\leq 5n$ for all $n\geq 1$. As an application, we improve on a recent bound by Hung and Yang for arbitrary finite groups.

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arXiv2022

On the Generation, Structure, and Symmetries of Minimal Prime Graphs

In this paper we continue the study of prime graphs of finite solvable groups. The prime graph, or Gruenberg-Kegel graph, of a finite group G has vertices consisting of the prime divisors of the order of G and an edge from primes p to q if and only if G contains an element of order pq. Since the discovery of a simple, purely graph theoretical characterization of the prime graphs of solvable groups in 2015 these graphs have been studied in more detail from a graph theoretic angle. In this paper we explore several new aspects of these graphs. We characterize regular reseminant graphs and study the automorphisms of reseminant graphs for arbitrary base graphs. We then study minimal prime graphs on larger vertex sets by a novel regular graph construction for base graphs and by proving results on prime graph properties under graph products. Lastly, we present the first new way, different from vertex duplication, to obtain a new minimal prime graph from a given minimal prime graph.

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arXiv2022

The Prime Graphs of Some Classes of Finite Groups

In this paper we study prime graphs of finite groups. The prime graph of a finite group $G$, also known as the Gruenberg-Kegel graph, is the graph with vertex set {primes dividing $|G|$} and an edge $p$-$q$ if and only if there exists an element of order $pq$ in $G$. In finite group theory, studying the prime graph of a group has been an important topic for the past almost half century. Only recently prime graphs of solvable groups have been characterized in graph theoretical terms only. In this paper, we continue this line of research and give complete characterizations of several classes of groups, including groups of square-free order, metanilpotent groups, groups of cube-free order, and, for any $n\in \mathbb{N}$, solvable groups of $n^\text{th}$-power-free order. We also explore the prime graphs of groups whose composition factors are cyclic or $A_5$ and draw connections to a conjecture of Maslova. We then propose an algorithm that recovers the prime graph from a dual prime graph.

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arXiv2021

Finite Permutation Groups with Few Orbits Under the Action on the Power Set

We study the orbits under the natural action of a permutation group $G \subseteq S_n$ on the powerset $\mathscr{P}(\{1, \dots , n\})$. The permutation groups having exactly $n+1$ orbits on the powerset can be characterized as set-transitive groups and were fully classified in \cite{BP55}. In this paper, we establish a general method that allows one to classify the permutation groups with $n+r$ set-orbits for a given $r$, and apply it to integers $2 \leq r \leq 15$ using the computer algebra system GAP.

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arXiv2020

Minimal Prime Graphs of Solvable Groups

We explore graph theoretical properties of minimal prime graphs of finite solvable groups. In finite group theory studying the prime graph of a group has been an important topic for the past almost half century. Recently prime graphs of solvable groups have been characterized in graph theoretical terms only. This now allows the study of these graphs with methods from graph theory only. Minimal prime graphs turn out to be of particular interest, and in this paper we pursue this further by exploring, among other things, diameters, Hamiltonian cycles and the property of being self-complementary for minimal prime graphs. We also study a new, but closely related notion of minimality for prime graphs and look into counting minimal prime graphs.

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arXiv2020

The Adjacency Spectra of Some Families of Minimally Connected Prime Graphs

In finite group theory, studying the prime graph of a group has been an important topic for almost the past half-century. Recently, prime graphs of solvable groups have been characterized in graph theoretical terms only. This now allows the study of these graphs without any knowledge of the group theoretical background. In this paper we study prime graphs from a linear algebra angle and focus on the class of minimally connected prime graphs introduced in earlier work on the subject. As our main results, we determine the determinants of the adjacency matrices and the spectra of some important families of these graphs.

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arXiv2020

A lower bound for the number of odd-degree representations of a finite group

Let $G$ be a finite group and $P$ a Sylow $2$-subgroup of $G$. We obtain both asymptotic and explicit bounds for the number of odd-degree irreducible complex representations of $G$ in terms of the size of the abelianization of $P$. To do so, we, on one hand, make use of the recent proof of the McKay conjecture for the prime 2 by Malle and Späth, and, on the other hand, prove lower bounds for the class number of the semidirect product of an odd-order group acting on an abelian $2$-group.

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