NEW REDUCTIONS AND LOGARITHMIC LOWER BOUNDS FOR THE NUMBER OF CONJUGACY CLASSES IN FINITE GROUPS

Abstract

AbstractThe unsolved problem of whether there exists a positive constant $c$ such that the number $k(G)$ of conjugacy classes in any finite group $G$ satisfies $k(G) \geq c \log _{2}|G|$ has attracted attention for many years. Deriving bounds on $k(G)$ from (that is, reducing the problem to) lower bounds on $k(N)$ and $k(G/N)$, $N\trianglelefteq G$, plays a critical role. Recently Keller proved the best lower bound known for solvable groups: \[ k(G)\gt c_{0} \frac {\log _{2}|G|} {\log _{2} \log _{2} |G|}\quad (|G|\geq 4) \] using such a reduction. We show that there are many reductions using $k(G/N) \geq \beta [G : N]^{\alpha }$ or $k(G/N) \geq \beta (\log [G : N])^{t}$ which, together with other information about $G$ and $N$ or $k(N)$, yield a logarithmic lower bound on $k(G)$.