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University of Sydney Algebra Seminar

Kamilla Rekvenyi

Friday 14 February, 12-1pm, in Carslaw 275

Width questions in finite simple groups

Let $T$ be a non-abelian simple group, and $S$ a generating set of $T$. Define the width of $T$ with respect to $S$, to be $min\{k:S^k=T\},$ where $S^k$ is the set of products of $k$ elements in $S$. Finding this number has been considered with respect to several generating sets, for example the case where $S$ is a conjugacy class or the case when $S$ is the set of involutions in $T$. I will mention some of these and a new result, in collaboration with D. Dona and M. Liebeck, which is a refinement of width questions in finite simple groups.