p-Nilpotence, classifying space indecomposability, and other properties of almost all finite groups.
Positively finitely generated groups.
Probability that an element of a finite group has a square root
Let G be a finite group of even order. We give some bounds for the probability p(G) that a randomly chosen element in G has a square root. In particular, we prove that p(G) ≤ 1 - ⌊√|G|⌋/|G|. Moreover, we show that if the Sylow 2-subgroup of G is not a proper normal elementary abelian subgroup of G, then p(G) ≤ 1 - 1/√|G|. Both of these bounds are best possible upper bounds for p(G), depending only on the order of G.
Product decompositions of quasirandom groups and a Jordan type theorem
We first note that a result of Gowers on product-free sets in groups has an unexpected consequence: If is the minimal degree of a representation of the finite group , then for every subset of with we have . We use this to obtain improved versions of recent deep theorems of Helfgott and of Shalev concerning product decompositions of finite simple groups, with much simpler proofs. On the other hand, we prove a version of Jordan’s theorem which implies that if , then has a proper subgroup...
Product replacement in the Monster.