Let A be a finite group acting fixed-point freely on a finite (solvable) group G. A longstanding conjecture is that if (|G|, |A|) = 1, then the Fitting length of G is bounded by the length of the longest chain of subgroups of A. It is expected that the conjecture is true when the coprimeness condition is replaced by the assumption that A is nilpotent. We establish the conjecture without the coprimeness condition in the case where A is an abelian group whose order is a product of three odd primes and where the Sylow 2-subgroups of G are abelian.

Let Y be a fixed nonempty subset of a set X and let T(X,Y ) denote the semigroup of all total transformations from X into Y. In 1975, Symons described the automorphisms of T(X,Y ). Three decades later, Nenthein, Youngkhong and Kemprasit determined its regular elements, and more recently Sanwong, Singha and Sullivan characterized all maximal and minimal congruences on T(X,Y ). In 2008, Sanwong and Sommanee determined the largest regular subsemigroup of T(X,Y ) when |Y |≠1and Y ≠ X; and using this, they described the Green’s relations on T(X,Y ) . Here, we use their work to describe the ideal structure of T(X,Y ) . We also correct the proof of the corresponding result for a linear analogue of T(X,Y ) .

The partition monoid is a salient natural example of a *-regular semigroup. We find a Galois connection between elements of the partition monoid and binary relations, and use it to show that the partition monoid contains copies of the semigroup of transformations and the symmetric and dual-symmetric inverse semigroups on the underlying set. We characterize the divisibility preorders and the natural order on the (straight) partition monoid, using certain graphical structures associated with each element. This gives a simpler characterization of Green’s relations. We also derive a new interpretation of the natural order on the transformation semigroup. The results are also used to describe the ideal lattices of the straight and twisted partition monoids and the Brauer monoid.

Shumyatsky and the second author proved that if G is a finitely generated residually finite p-group satisfying a law, then, for almost all primes p, the fact that a normal and commutator-closed set of generators satisfies a positive law implies that the whole of G also satisfies a (possibly different) positive law. In this paper, we construct a counterexample showing that the hypothesis of finite generation of the group G cannot be dispensed with.

Erdős and Szekeres [‘Some number theoretic problems on binomial coefficients’, Aust. Math. Soc. Gaz.5 (1978), 97–99] showed that for any four positive integers satisfying m1+m2=n1+n2, the two binomial coefficients (m1+m2)!/m1!m2! and (n1+n2)!/n1!n2! have a common divisor greater than 1. The analogous statement for k-element families of k-nomial coefficients (k>1) was conjectured in 1997 by David Wasserman.

Erdős and Szekeres remark that if m1,m2,n1,n2 as above are all greater than 1, there is probably a lower bound on the common divisor in question which goes to infinity as a function of m1 +m2 .Such a bound is obtained in Section 2.

The remainder of this paper is devoted to proving results that narrow the class of possible counterexamples to Wasserman’s conjecture.

We count the number of lifts of an irreducible π-partial character that lies in a block with a cyclic defect group.

We prove that the variety consisting of all involutory inflations of normal bands is the unique maximal residually finite variety consisting of combinatorial semigroups with involution.

In this paper, we classify the finite groups belonging to the class of cyclic-transitive groups. A group G is said to be cyclic-transitive if the following condition holds: if x, y, z are nonidentity elements of G such that 〈x,y〉 and 〈y,z〉 are both cyclic, then 〈x,z〉 is also cyclic.

The topological complexity is a numerical homotopy invariant of a topological space X which is motivated by robotics and is similar in spirit to the classical Lusternik–Schnirelmann category of X. Given a mechanical system with configuration space X, the invariant measures the complexity of motion planning algorithms which can be designed for the system. In this paper, we compute the topological complexity of the configuration space of n distinct ordered points on an orientable surface, for both closed and punctured surfaces. Our main tool is a theorem of B. Totaro describing the cohomology of configuration spaces of algebraic varieties. For configuration spaces of punctured surfaces, this is used in conjunction with techniques from the theory of mixed Hodge structures.

Let R be an integral domain and A a symmetric cellular algebra over R with a cellular basis {CλS,T∣λ∈Λ,S,T∈M(λ)}. We construct an ideal L(A) of the centre of A and prove that L(A) contains the so-called Higman ideal. When R is a field, we prove that the dimension of L(A)is not less than the number of nonisomorphic simple A-modules.

It is well known that if a convex hyperbolic polygon is constructed as a fundamental domain for a subgroup of SL(2,ℝ), then its translates by the group form a locally finite tessellation and its side-pairing transformations form a system of generators for the group. Such a hyperbolically convex fundamental domain for any discrete subgroup can be obtained by using Dirichlet’s and Ford’s polygon constructions. However, these two results are not well adapted for the actual construction of a hyperbolically convex fundamental domain due to their nature of construction. A third, and most important and practical, method of obtaining a fundamental domain is through the use of a right coset decomposition as described below. If Γ2 is a subgroup of Γ1 such that Γ1=Γ2⋅{L1,L2,…,Lm} and 𝔽 is the closure of a fundamental domain of the bigger group Γ1, then the set is a fundamental domain of Γ2. One can ask at this juncture, is it possible to choose the right coset suitably so that the set ℛ is a convex hyperbolic polygon? We will answer this question affirmatively for Hecke modular groups.

We extend some results known for FC-groups to the class FC* of generalized FC-groups introduced in de Giovanni et al. [‘Groups with restricted conjugacy classes’, Serdica Math. J.28(3) (2002), 241–254]. The main theorems pertain to the join of pronormal subgroups. The relevant role that the Wielandt subgroup plays in an FC*-group is pointed out.

Suppose that p is 3,5,7,11 or 13. We classify the radical p-chains of the Monster 𝕄 and verify the Alperin weight conjecture and Uno’s reductive conjecture for 𝕄, the latter being a refinement of Dade’s reductive conjecture and the Isaacs–Navarro conjecture.

Suppose that G is a connected reductive group over a p-adic field F, that K is a hyperspecial maximal compact subgroup of G(F), and that V is an irreducible representation of K over the algebraic closure of the residue field of F. We establish an analogue of the Satake isomorphism for the Hecke algebra of compactly supported,K-biequivariant functions f:G(F)→End   V. These Hecke algebras were first considered by Barthel and Livné for GL 2. They play a role in the recent mod p andp-adic Langlands correspondences for GL 2 (ℚp) , in generalisations of Serre’s conjecture on the modularity of mod p Galois representations, and in the classification of irreducible mod p representations of unramified p-adic reductive groups.

The holonomic rank of the A-hypergeometric system MA(β) is the degree of the toric ideal IA for generic parameters; in general, this is only a lower bound. To the semigroup ring of A we attach the ranking arrangement and use this algebraic invariant and the exceptional arrangement of non-generic parameters to construct a combinatorial formula for the rank jump of MA(β). As consequences, we obtain a refinement of the stratification of the exceptional arrangement by the rank of MA(β) and show that the Zariski closure of each of its strata is a union of translates of linear subspaces of the parameter space. These results hold for generalized A-hypergeometric systems as well, where the semigroup ring of A is replaced by a non-trivial weakly toric module M⊆ℂ[ℤA] . We also provide a direct proof of the main result in [M. Saito, Isomorphism classes of A-hypergeometric systems, Compositio Math. 128 (2001), 323–338] regarding the isomorphism classes of MA (β) .

Let G be a finite group. If G has a cyclic Sylow 2-subgroup, then G has the same number of irreducible rational-valued characters as of rational conjugacy classes. These numbers need not be the same even if G has Klein Sylow 2-subgroups and a normal 2-complement.

We introduce the notion of wide representation of an inverse semigroup and prove that with a suitably defined topology there is a space of germs of such a representation that has the structure of an étale groupoid. This gives an elegant description of Paterson's universal groupoid and of the translation groupoid of Skandalis, Tu and Yu. In addition, we characterize the inverse semigroups that arise from groupoids, leading to a precise bijection between the class of étale groupoids and the class of complete and infinitely distributive inverse monoids equipped with suitable representations, and we explain the sense in which quantales and localic groupoids carry a generalization of this correspondence.

We show that if A is a stable basis algebra satisfying the distributivity condition, then B is a reduct of an independence algebra A having the same rank. If this rank is finite, then the endomorphism monoid of B is a left order in the endomorphism monoid of A.

In this paper we refine and extend the applicability of the algorithms in Bates and Rowley (Arch. Math. 92 (2009) 7–13) for computing part of the normalizer of a 2-subgroup in a black-box group.

Supplementary materials are available with this article.

We describe an algorithm for computing successive quotients of the Schur multiplier M(G) of a group G given by an invariant finite L-presentation. As applications, we investigate the Schur multipliers of various self-similar groups, including the Grigorchuk super-group, the generalized Fabrykowski–Gupta groups, the Basilica group and the Brunner–Sidki–Vieira group.