The efficiency of PSL(2, p)3 and other direct products of groups

Abstract

A finite group G is efficient if it has a presentation on n generators and n + m relations, where m is the minimal number of generators of the Schur multiplier M (G)of G. The deficiency of a presentation of G is r–n, where r is the number of relations and n the number of generators. The deficiency of G, def G, is the minimum deficiency over all finite presentations of G. Thus a group is efficient if def G = m. Both the problem of efficiency and the converse problem of inefficiency have received considerable attention recently; see for example [1], [3], [14] and [15].