For a group G, we define a graph $\Delta (G)$ by letting $G^{\scriptsize\#}=G\setminus {\{\,1\,\}} $ be the set of vertices and by drawing an edge between distinct elements $x,y\in G^{\scriptsize\#}$ if and only if the subgroup $\langle x,y\rangle $ is cyclic. Recall that a Z-group is a group where every Sylow subgroup is cyclic. In this short note, we investigate $\Delta (G)$ for a Z-group G.

It is conjectured that the central quotient of any irreducible Artin–Tits group is either virtually cyclic or acylindrically hyperbolic. We prove this conjecture for Artin–Tits groups that are known to be CAT(0) groups by a result of Brady and McCammond, that is, Artin–Tits groups associated with graphs having no 3-cycles and Artin–Tits groups of almost large type associated with graphs admitting appropriate directions. In particular, the latter family contains Artin–Tits groups of large type associated with cones over square-free bipartite graphs.

In this article we establish the arithmetic purity of strong approximation for certain semisimple simply connected linear algebraic groups and their homogeneous spaces over a number field $k$. For instance, for any such group $G$ and for any open subset $U$ of $G$ with ${\mathrm {codim}}(G\setminus U, G)\geqslant 2$, we prove that (i) if $G$ is $k$-simple and $k$-isotropic, then $U$ satisfies strong approximation off any finite number of places; and (ii) if $G$ is the spin group of a non-degenerate quadratic form which is not compact over archimedean places, then $U$ satisfies strong approximation off all archimedean places. As a consequence, we prove that the same property holds for affine quadratic hypersurfaces. Our approach combines a fibration method with subgroup actions developed for induction on the codimension of $G\setminus U$, and an affine linear sieve which allows us to produce integral points with almost-prime polynomial values.

A long standing problem, which has its roots in low-dimensional homotopy theory, is to classify all finite groups G for which the integral group ring ℤG has stably free cancellation (SFC). We extend results of R. G. Swan by giving a condition for SFC and use this to show that ℤG has SFC provided at most one copy of the quaternions ℍ occurs in the Wedderburn decomposition of the real group ring ℝG. This generalises the Eichler condition in the case of integral group rings.

For a finite group G, let $\Delta (G)$ denote the character graph built on the set of degrees of the irreducible complex characters of G. A perfect graph is a graph $\Gamma $ in which the chromatic number of every induced subgraph $\Delta $ of $\Gamma $ equals the clique number of $\Delta $. We show that the character graph $\Delta (G)$ of a finite group G is always a perfect graph. We also prove that the chromatic number of the complement of $\Delta (G)$ is at most three.

We consider the Newton stratification on Iwahori-double cosets in the loop group of a reductive group. We describe a group-theoretic condition on the generic Newton point, called cordiality, under which the Newton poset (that is, the index set for non-empty Newton strata) is saturated and Grothendieck’s conjecture on closures of the Newton strata holds. Finally, we give several large classes of Iwahori-double cosets for which this condition is satisfied by studying certain paths in the associated quantum Bruhat graph.

We prove that the sign of the Euler characteristic of arithmetic groups with the congruence subgroup property is determined by the profinite completion. In contrast, we construct examples showing that this is not true for the Euler characteristic itself and that the sign of the Euler characteristic is not profinite among general residually finite groups of type F. Our methods imply similar results for $\ell^2$-torsion as well as a strong profiniteness statement for Novikov–Shubin invariants.

A right Engel sink of an element g of a group G is a set ${\mathscr R}(g)$ such that for every x ∈ G all sufficiently long commutators $[...[[g,x],x],\dots ,x]$ belong to ${\mathscr R}(g)$. (Thus, g is a right Engel element precisely when we can choose ${\mathscr R}(g)=\{ 1\}$.) It is proved that if every element of a compact (Hausdorff) group G has a countable right Engel sink, then G has a finite normal subgroup N such that G/N is locally nilpotent.

Given a group G and a subgroup H, we let $\mathcal {O}_G(H)$ denote the lattice of subgroups of G containing H. This article provides a classification of the subgroups H of G such that $\mathcal {O}_{G}(H)$ is Boolean of rank at least $3$ when G is a finite alternating or symmetric group. Besides some sporadic examples and some twisted versions, there are two different types of such lattices. One type arises by taking stabilisers of chains of regular partitions, and the other arises by taking stabilisers of chains of regular product structures. As an application, we prove in this case a conjecture on Boolean overgroup lattices related to the dual Ore’s theorem and to a problem of Kenneth Brown.

It is shown that the Ellis semigroup of a $\mathbb Z$-action on a compact totally disconnected space is completely regular if and only if forward proximality coincides with forward asymptoticity and backward proximality coincides with backward asymptoticity. Furthermore, the Ellis semigroup of a $\mathbb Z$- or $\mathbb R$-action for which forward proximality and backward proximality are transitive relations is shown to have at most two left minimal ideals. Finally, the notion of near simplicity of the Ellis semigroup is introduced and related to the above.

Let G be a reductive algebraic group—possibly non-connected—over a field k, and let H be a subgroup of G. If $G= {GL }_n$, then there is a degeneration process for obtaining from H a completely reducible subgroup $H'$ of G; one takes a limit of H along a cocharacter of G in an appropriate sense. We generalise this idea to arbitrary reductive G using the notion of G-complete reducibility and results from geometric invariant theory over non-algebraically closed fields due to the authors and Herpel. Our construction produces a G-completely reducible subgroup $H'$ of G, unique up to $G(k)$-conjugacy, which we call a k-semisimplification of H. This gives a single unifying construction that extends various special cases in the literature (in particular, it agrees with the usual notion for $G= GL _n$ and with Serre’s ‘G-analogue’ of semisimplification for subgroups of $G(k)$ from [19]). We also show that under some extra hypotheses, one can pick $H'$ in a more canonical way using the Tits Centre Conjecture for spherical buildings and/or the theory of optimal destabilising cocharacters introduced by Hesselink, Kempf, and Rousseau.

We establish the inductive blockwise Alperin weight condition for simple groups of Lie type $\mathsf C$ and the bad prime $2$. As a main step, we derive a labelling set for the irreducible $2$-Brauer characters of the finite symplectic groups $\operatorname {Sp}_{2n}(q)$ (with odd q), together with the action of automorphisms. As a further important ingredient, we prove a Jordan decomposition for weights.

In this paper, we study finite semiprimitive permutation groups, that is, groups in which each normal subgroup is transitive or semiregular. These groups have recently been investigated in terms of their abstract structure, in a similar way to the O'Nan–Scott Theorem for primitive groups. Our goal here is to explore aspects of such groups which may be useful in place of precise structural information. We give bounds on the order, base size, minimal degree, fixed point ratio, and chief length of an arbitrary finite semiprimitive group in terms of its degree. To establish these bounds, we study the structure of a finite semiprimitive group that induces the alternating or symmetric group on the set of orbits of an intransitive minimal normal subgroup.

We say a group G satisfies properties (M) and (NM) if every nontrivial finite subgroup of G is contained in a unique maximal finite subgroup, and every nontrivial finite maximal subgroup is self-normalizing. We prove that the Bredon cohomological dimension and the virtual cohomological dimension coincide for groups that admit a cocompact model for EG and satisfy properties (M) and (NM). Among the examples of groups satisfying these hypothesis are cocompact and arithmetic Fuchsian groups, one-relator groups, the Hilbert modular group, and 3-manifold groups.

We show that for every non-elementary hyperbolic group the Bowen–Margulis current associated with a strongly hyperbolic metric forms a unique group-invariant Radon measure class of maximal Hausdorff dimension on the boundary square. Applications include a characterization of roughly similar hyperbolic metrics via mean distortion.

Let A be a two-dimensional abelian variety defined over a number field K. Fix a prime number $\ell $ and suppose $\#A({\mathbf {F}_{\mathfrak {p}}}) \equiv 0 \pmod {\ell ^2}$ for a set of primes ${\mathfrak {p}} \subset {\mathcal {O}_{K}}$ of density 1. When $\ell =2$ Serre has shown that there does not necessarily exist a K-isogenous $A'$ such that $\#A'(K)_{{tor}} \equiv 0 \pmod {4}$. We extend those results to all odd $\ell $ and classify the abelian varieties that fail this divisibility principle for torsion in terms of the image of the mod-$\ell ^2$ representation.

The main objective of this paper is the following two results. (1) There exists a computable bi-orderable group that does not have a computable bi-ordering; (2) there exists a bi-orderable, two-generated computably presented solvable group with undecidable word problem. Both of the groups can be found among two-generated solvable groups of derived length $3$.

(1) [a]nswers a question posed by Downey and Kurtz; (2) answers a question posed by Bludov and Glass in Kourovka Notebook.

One of the technical tools used to obtain the main results is a computational extension of an embedding theorem of B. Neumann that was studied by the author earlier. In this paper we also compliment that result and derive new corollaries that might be of independent interest.

We consider the graph $\Gamma _{\text {virt}}(G)$ whose vertices are the elements of a finitely generated profinite group G and where two vertices x and y are adjacent if and only if they topologically generate an open subgroup of G. We investigate the connectivity of the graph $\Delta _{\text {virt}}(G)$ obtained from $\Gamma _{\text {virt}}(G)$ by removing its isolated vertices. In particular, we prove that for every positive integer t, there exists a finitely generated prosoluble group G with the property that $\Delta _{\operatorname {\mathrm {virt}}}(G)$ has precisely t connected components. Moreover, we study the graph $\widetilde \Gamma _{\operatorname {\mathrm {virt}}}(G)$, whose vertices are again the elements of G and where two vertices are adjacent if and only if there exists a minimal generating set of G containing them. In this case, we prove that the subgraph $\widetilde \Delta _{\operatorname {\mathrm {virt}}}(G)$ obtained removing the isolated vertices is connected and has diameter at most 3.

Let G be a nontrivial torsion-free group and $s\left( t \right) = {g_1}{t^{{\varepsilon _1}}}{g_2}{t^{{\varepsilon _2}}} \ldots {g_n}{t^{{\varepsilon _n}}} = 1\left( {{g_i} \in G,{\varepsilon_i} = \pm 1} \right)$ be an equation over G containing no blocks of the form ${t^{- 1}}{g_i}{t^{ - 1}},{g_i} \in G$. In this paper, we show that $s\left( t \right) = 1$ has a solution over G provided a single relation on coefficients of s(t) holds. We also generalize our results to equations containing higher powers of t. The later equations are also related to Kaplansky zero-divisor conjecture.