Non-abelian anyons and some cousins of the Arad-Herzog conjecture

Long ago, Arad and Herzog (AH) conjectured that, in finite simple groups, the product of two conjugacy classes of length greater than one is never a single conjugacy class. We discuss implications of this conjecture for non-abelian anyons in 2 + 1-dimensional discrete gauge theories. Thinking in this way also suggests closely related statements about finite simple groups and their associated discrete gauge theories. We prove these statements and provide some physical intuition for their validity. Finally, we explain that the lack of certain dualities in theories with non-abelian finite simple gauge groups provides a non-trivial check of the AH conjecture.

Group Knowledge and Mathematical Collaboration: A Philosophical Examination of the Classification of Finite Simple Groups

In this paper we apply social epistemology to mathematical proofs and their role in mathematical knowledge. The most famous modern collaborative mathematical proof effort is the Classification of Finite Simple Groups. The history and sociology of this proof have been well-documented by Alma Steingart (2012), who highlights a number of surprising and unusual features of this collaborative endeavour that set it apart from smaller-scale pieces of mathematics. These features raise a number of interesting philosophical issues, but have received very little attention. In this paper, we will consider the philosophical tensions that Steingart uncovers, and use them to argue that the best account of the epistemic status of the Classification Theorem will be essentially and ineliminably social. This forms part of the broader argument that in order to understand mathematical proofs, we must appreciate their social aspects.

NONDIVISIBILITY AMONG IRREDUCIBLE CHARACTER CO-DEGREES

For a character $\chi $ of a finite group G, the number $\chi ^c(1)={[G:{\textrm {ker}}\chi ]}/{\chi (1)}$ is called the co-degree of $\chi $ . A finite group G is an ${\textrm {NDAC}} $ -group (no divisibility among co-degrees) when $\chi ^c(1) \nmid \phi ^c(1)$ for all irreducible characters $\chi $ and $\phi $ of G with $1< \chi ^c(1) < \phi ^c(1)$ . We study finite groups admitting an irreducible character whose co-degree is a given prime p and finite nonsolvable ${\textrm {NDAC}} $ -groups. Then we show that the finite simple groups $^2B_2(2^{2f+1})$ , where $f\geq 1$ , $\mbox {PSL}_3(4)$ , ${\textrm {Alt}}_7$ and $J_1$ are determined uniquely by the set of their irreducible character co-degrees.