Building on coprincipal mesoprimary decomposition [Kahle and Miller, Decompositions of commutative monoid congruences and binomial ideals, Algebra and Number Theory 8 (2014), 1297–1364], we combinatorially construct an irreducible decomposition of any given binomial ideal. In a parallel manner, for congruences in commutative monoids we construct decompositions that are direct combinatorial analogues of binomial irreducible decompositions, and for binomial ideals we construct decompositions into ideals that are as irreducible as possible while remaining binomial. We provide an example of a binomial ideal that is not an intersection of irreducible binomial ideals, thus answering a question of Eisenbud and Sturmfels [Binomial ideals, Duke Math. J. 84 (1996), 1–45].

For an odd prime $p$, a $p$-transposition group is a group generated by a set of involutions such that the product of any two has order 2 or $p$. We first classify a family of $(G,2)$-geodesic transitive Cayley graphs ${\rm\Gamma}:=\text{Cay}(T,S)$ where $S$ is a set of involutions and $T:\text{Inn}(T)\leq G\leq T:\text{Aut}(T,S)$. In this case, $T$ is either an elementary abelian 2-group or a $p$-transposition group. Then under the further assumption that $G$ acts quasiprimitively on the vertex set of ${\rm\Gamma}$, we prove that: (1) if ${\rm\Gamma}$ is not $(G,2)$-arc transitive, then this quasiprimitive action is the holomorph affine type; (2) if $T$ is a $p$-transposition group and $S$ is a conjugacy class, then $p=3$ and ${\rm\Gamma}$ is $(G,2)$-arc transitive.

This paper contributes to the regular covers of a complete bipartite graph minus a matching, denoted $K_{n,n}-nK_{2}$ , whose fiber-preserving automorphism group acts 2-arc-transitively. All such covers, when the covering transformation group $K$ is either cyclic or $\mathbb{Z}_{p}^{2}$ with $p$ a prime, have been determined in Xu and Du [‘2-arc-transitive cyclic covers of $K_{n,n}-nK_{2}$ ’, J. Algebraic Combin.39 (2014), 883–902] and Xu et al. [‘2-arc-transitive regular covers of $K_{n,n}-nK_{2}$ with the covering transformation group $\mathbb{Z}_{p}^{2}$ ’, Ars. Math. Contemp.10 (2016), 269–280]. Finally, this paper gives a classification of all such covers for $K\cong \mathbb{Z}_{p}^{3}$ with $p$ a prime.

Let $F$ be a field of characteristic $p\geq 0$ and $G$ any group. In this article, the Engel property of the group of units of the group algebra $FG$ is investigated. We show that if $G$ is locally finite, then ${\mathcal{U}}(FG)$ is an Engel group if and only if $G$ is locally nilpotent and $G^{\prime }$ is a $p$ -group. Suppose that the set of nilpotent elements of $FG$ is finite. It is also shown that if $G$ is torsion, then ${\mathcal{U}}(FG)$ is an Engel group if and only if $G^{\prime }$ is a finite $p$ -group and $FG$ is Lie Engel, if and only if ${\mathcal{U}}(FG)$ is locally nilpotent. If $G$ is nontorsion but $FG$ is semiprime, we show that the Engel property of ${\mathcal{U}}(FG)$ implies that the set of torsion elements of $G$ forms an abelian normal subgroup of $G$ .

Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an orthogonal $\ast$ -basis of symmetry classes of tensors associated to nonabelian groups of order $pq$ are provided by using vanishing sums of roots of unity.

Let $G$ be a finite group and let $N$ be a normal subgroup of $G$ . We determine the structure of $N$ when the diameter of the graph associated to the $G$ -conjugacy classes contained in $N$ is as large as possible, that is, equal to three.

The point-line collinearity graph ${\mathcal{G}}$ of the maximal 2-local geometry for the largest simple Fischer group, $Fi_{24}^{\prime }$ , is extensively analysed. For an arbitrary vertex $a$ of ${\mathcal{G}}$ , the $i\text{th}$ -disc of $a$ is described in detail. As a consequence, it follows that ${\mathcal{G}}$ has diameter $5$ . The collapsed adjacency matrix of ${\mathcal{G}}$ is given as well as accompanying computer files which contain a wealth of data about ${\mathcal{G}}$ .

Supplementary materials are available with this article.

In this paper we determine the structure of the total component of the Schur multiplier over an algebraically closed field of some relevant families of groups, such as dihedral groups, dicyclic groups, the infinite cyclic group and the direct product of two finite cyclic groups.

A graph is called arc-regular if its full automorphism group acts regularly on its arc set. In this paper, we completely determine all the arc-regular Frobenius metacirculants of prime valency.

It is shown that for many branch groups $G$ the action on the ambient tree can be interpreted in $G$ , in the sense of first-order model theory.

Let $E$ be an elliptic curve without complex multiplication (CM) over a number field $K$ , and let $G_{E}(\ell )$ be the image of the Galois representation induced by the action of the absolute Galois group of  $K$ on the $\ell$ -torsion subgroup of  $E$ . We present two probabilistic algorithms to simultaneously determine $G_{E}(\ell )$ up to local conjugacy for all primes $\ell$ by sampling images of Frobenius elements; one is of Las Vegas type and the other is a Monte Carlo algorithm. They determine $G_{E}(\ell )$ up to one of at most two isomorphic conjugacy classes of subgroups of $\mathbf{GL}_{2}(\mathbf{Z}/\ell \mathbf{Z})$ that have the same semisimplification, each of which occurs for an elliptic curve isogenous to $E$ . Under the GRH, their running times are polynomial in the bit-size $n$ of an integral Weierstrass equation for  $E$ , and for our Monte Carlo algorithm, quasilinear in $n$ . We have applied our algorithms to the non-CM elliptic curves in Cremona’s tables and the Stein–Watkins database, some 140 million curves of conductor up to  $10^{10}$ , thereby obtaining a conjecturally complete list of 63 exceptional Galois images $G_{E}(\ell )$ that arise for $E/\mathbf{Q}$ without CM. Under this conjecture, we determine a complete list of 160 exceptional Galois images $G_{E}(\ell )$ that arise for non-CM elliptic curves over quadratic fields with rational $j$ -invariants. We also give examples of exceptional Galois images that arise for non-CM elliptic curves over quadratic fields only when the $j$ -invariant is irrational.

We prove that either the images of the mappingclass groups by quantum representations are not isomorphic to higher rank lattices or else the kernels have a large number of normal generators. Further, we show that the images of the mapping class groups have non-trivial 2-cohomology, at least for small levels. For this purpose, we considered a series of quasi-homomorphisms on mapping class groups extending the previous work of Barge and Ghys (Math. Ann. 294 (1992), 235–265) and of Gambaudo and Ghys (Bull. Soc. Math. France 133(4) (2005), 541–579). These quasi-homomorphisms are pull-backs of the Dupont–Guichardet–Wigner quasi-homomorphisms on pseudo-unitary groups along quantum representations.

Let $p$ be an odd prime. In this note, we show that a finite group $G$ is solvable if all degrees of irreducible complex characters of $G$ not divisible by $p$ are either 1 or a prime.

We give an alternate proof of Wise’s malnormal special quotient theorem (MSQT), avoiding cubical small cancelation theory. We also show how to deduce Wise’s Quasiconvex Hierarchy Theorem from the MSQT and theorems of Hsu and Wise and Haglund and Wise.

We show that the proportion of permutations $g$ in $S_{\!n}$ or $A_{n}$ such that $g$ has even order and $g^{|g|/2}$ is an involution with support of cardinality at most $\lceil n^{{\it\varepsilon}}\rceil$ is at least a constant multiple of ${\it\varepsilon}$ . Using this result, we obtain the same conclusion for elements in a classical group of natural dimension $n$ in odd characteristic that have even order and power up to an involution with $(-1)$ -eigenspace of dimension at most $\lceil n^{{\it\varepsilon}}\rceil$ for a linear or unitary group, or $2\lceil \lfloor n/2\rfloor ^{{\it\varepsilon}}\rceil$ for a symplectic or orthogonal group.

Zhou and Feng [‘On symmetric graphs of valency five’, Discrete Math. 310 (2010), 1725–1732] proved that all connected pentavalent 1-transitive Cayley graphs of finite nonabelian simple groups are normal. We construct an example of a nonnormal 2-arc transitive pentavalent symmetric Cayley graph on the alternating group $\text{A}_{39}$. Furthermore, we show that the full automorphism group of this graph is isomorphic to the alternating group $\text{A}_{40}$.

We classify all (saturated) fusion systems on bicyclic 2-groups. Here, a bicyclic group is a product of two cyclic subgroups. This extends previous work on fusion systems on metacyclic 2-groups. As an application we prove Olsson's conjecture for all blocks with bicyclic defect groups.

For each positive $n$ , let $\mathbf{u}_{n}\approx \boldsymbol{v}_{n}$ denote the identity obtained from the Adjan identity $(xy)(yx)(xy)(xy)(yx)\approx (xy)(yx)(yx)(xy)(yx)$ by substituting $(xy)\rightarrow (x_{1}x_{2}\ldots x_{n})$ and $(yx)\rightarrow (x_{n}\ldots x_{2}x_{1})$ . We show that every monoid which satisfies $\mathbf{u}_{n}\approx \boldsymbol{v}_{n}$ for each positive $n$ and generates a variety containing the bicyclic monoid is nonfinitely based. This implies that the monoid $U_{2}(\mathbb{T})$ (respectively, $U_{2}(\overline{\mathbb{Z}})$ ) of two-by-two upper triangular tropical matrices over the tropical semiring $\mathbb{T}=\mathbb{R}\cup \{-\infty \}$ (respectively, $\overline{\mathbb{Z}}=\mathbb{Z}\cup \{-\infty \}$ ) is nonfinitely based.

We discuss some questions related to the generation of supersoluble groups. First we prove that the number of elements needed to generate a finite supersoluble group G with good probability can be quite a lot larger than the smallest cardinality d(G) of a generating set of G. Indeed, if G is the free prosupersoluble group of rank d ⩾ 2 and dP(G) is the minimum integer k such that the probability of generating G with k elements is positive, then dP(G) = 2d + 1. In contrast to this, if k – d(G) ⩾ 3, then the distribution of the first component in a k-tuple chosen uniformly in the set of all the k-tuples generating G is not too far from the uniform distribution.

Let m, n be positive integers, let υ be a multilinear commutator word and let w = υ m . We prove that if G is a locally graded group in which all w-values are n-Engel, then the verbal subgroup w(G) is locally nilpotent.