In this article, we study rational matrix representations of VZ p-groups (p is any prime). Using our findings on VZ p-groups, we explicitly obtain all inequivalent irreducible rational matrix representations of all p-groups of order $\leq p^4$. Furthermore, we establish combinatorial formulae to determine the Wedderburn decompositions of rational group algebras for VZ p-groups and all p-groups of order $\leq p^4$, ensuring simplicity in the process.

For linear nonuniform cellular automata (NUCA) which are local perturbations of linear CA over a group universe G and a finite-dimensional vector space alphabet V over an arbitrary field k, we investigate their Dedekind finiteness property, also known as the direct finiteness property, i.e., left or right invertibility implies invertibility. We say that the group G is $L^1$-surjunctive, resp. finitely $L^1$-surjunctive, if all such linear NUCA are automatically surjective whenever they are stably injective, resp. when in addition k is finite. In parallel, we introduce the ring $D^1(k[G])$ which is the Cartesian product $k[G] \times (k[G])[G]$ as an additive group but the multiplication is twisted in the second component. The ring $D^1(k[G])$ contains naturally the group ring $k[G]$ and we obtain a dynamical characterization of its stable finiteness for every field k in terms of the finite $L^1$-surjunctivity of the group G, which holds, for example, when G is residually finite or initially subamenable. Our results extend known results in the case of CA.

Skew left braces arise naturally from the study of non-degenerate set-theoretic solutions of the Yang–Baxter equation. To understand the algebraic structure of skew left braces, a study of the decomposition into minimal substructures is relevant. We introduce chief series and prove a strengthened form of the Jordan–Hölder theorem for finite skew left braces. A characterization of right nilpotency and an application to multipermutation solutions are also given.

Let R be a ring with identity of characteristic two and G a nontrivial torsion group. We show that if the units in the group ring $RG$ are all trivial, then G must be cyclic of order two or three. We also consider the case where R is a commutative ring with identity of odd prime characteristic and G is a nontrivial locally finite group. We show that in this case, if the units in $RG$ are all trivial, then G must be cyclic of order two. These results improve on a result of Herman et al. [‘Trivial units for group rings with G-adapted coefficient rings’, Canad. Math. Bull.48(1) (2005), 80–89].

Let k be a finite field of characteristic p, and G a compact p-adic analytic group. Write kG for the completed group ring of G over k. In this paper, we describe the structure of the ring kG/P, where P is a minimal prime ideal of kG. We give an explicit isomorphism between kG/P and a matrix ring with coefficients in the ring ${(k'G')_\alpha }$ , where $k'/k$ is a finite field extension, $G'$ is a large subquotient of G with no finite normal subgroups, and (–)α is a “twisting” operation that preserves many desirable properties of the ring structure. We demonstrate the usefulness of this isomorphism by studying the correspondence induced between certain ideals of kG and those of ${(k'G')_\alpha }$ , and showing that this preserves many useful “group-theoretic” properties of ideals, in particular almost-faithfulness and control by a closed normal subgroup.

We present a complete list of groups $G$ and fields $F$ for which: (i) the group of normalized units $V(FG)$ of the group algebra $FG$ is locally nilpotent; (ii) the set of nontrivial nilpotent elements of $FG$ is finite and nonempty, and $V(FG)$ is an Engel group.

This paper is about rings $R$ for which every element is a sum of a tripotent and an element from the Jacobson radical $J(R)$. These rings are called semi-tripotent rings. Examples include Boolean rings, strongly nil-clean rings, strongly 2-nil-clean rings, and semi-boolean rings. Here, many characterizations of semi-tripotent rings are obtained. Necessary and sufficient conditions for a Morita context (respectively, for a group ring of an abelian group or a locally finite nilpotent group) to be semi-tripotent are proved.

In this paper we study the behavior of the first Zassenhaus conjecture (ZC1) under direct products, as well as the General Bovdi Problem (Gen-BP), which turns out to be a slightly weaker variant of (ZC1). Among other things, we prove that (Gen-BP) holds for Sylow tower groups, and so in particular for the class of supersolvable groups.

(ZC1) is established for a direct product of Sylow-by-abelian groups provided the normal Sylow subgroups form together a Hall subgroup. We also show (ZC1) for certain direct products with one of the factors a Frobenius group.

We extend the classical HeLP method to group rings with coefficients from any ring of algebraic integers. This is used to study (ZC1) for the direct product $G\times A$, where $A$ is a finite abelian group and $G$ has order at most 95. For most of these groups we show that (ZC1) is valid and for all of them that (Gen-BP) holds. Moreover, we also prove that (Gen-BP) holds for the direct product of a Frobenius group with any finite abelian group.

Let S be the group of finitely supported permutations of a countably infinite set. Let $K[S]$ be the group algebra of S over a field K of characteristic 0. According to a theorem of Formanek and Lawrence, $K[S]$ satisfies the ascending chain condition for two-sided ideals. We study the reverse mathematics of this theorem, proving its equivalence over $RC{A_0}$ (or even over $RCA_0^{\rm{*}}$) to the statement that ${\omega ^\omega }$ is well ordered. Our equivalence proof proceeds via the statement that the Young diagrams form a well partial ordering.

Let F be a field of characteristic p ≠ 2 and G a group without 2-elements having an involution ∗. Extend the involution linearly to the group ring FG, and let (FG)− denote the set of skew elements with respect to ∗. In this paper, we show that if G is finite and (FG)− is Lie metabelian, then G is nilpotent. Based on this result, we deduce that if G is torsion, p > 7 and (FG)− is Lie metabelian, then G must be abelian. Exceptions are constructed for smaller values of p.

Let $g\,\mapsto \,{{g}^{*}}$ denote an involution on a group $G$. For any (commutative, associative) ring $R$ (with 1), $*$ extends linearly to an involution of the group ring $RG$. An element $\alpha \,\in \,RG$ is symmetric if ${{\alpha }^{*}}\,=\,\alpha $ and skew-symmetric if ${{\alpha }^{*}}\,=\,-\alpha $. The skew-symmetric elements are closed under the Lie bracket, $[\alpha ,\,\beta ]\,=\,\alpha \beta \,-\,\beta \alpha $. In this paper, we investigate when this set is also closed under the ring product in $RG$. The symmetric elements are closed under the Jordan product, $\alpha \,o\,\beta \,=\,\alpha \beta \,+\beta \alpha $. Here, we determine when this product is trivial. These two problems are analogues of problems about the skew-symmetric and symmetric elements in group rings that have received a lot of attention.

Malvenuto and Reutenauer (C. Malvenuto and C. Reutenauer, Duality between quasi-symmetric functions and the Solomon descent algebra, J. Algebra177 (1995), 967–982) showed how the total symmetric group ring ⊕nZΣn could be made into a Hopf algebra with a very nice structure which admitted the Solomon descent algebra as a sub-Hopf algebra. To do this they replaced the group multiplication by a convolution product, thus distancing their structure from the group structure of Σn. In this paper we examine what is possible if we keep to the group multiplication, and we also consider the question for more general families of groups. We show that a Hopf algebra structure is not possible, but cocommutative and non-cocommutative counital bialgebras can be obtained, arising from certain diagrams of group homomorphisms. In the case of the symmetric groups we note that all such structures are weak in the sense that the dual algebras have many zero-divisors, but structures which respect descent sums can be found.

We compute the center of the ring of PD differential operators on a smooth variety over ℤ/pnℤ, confirming a conjecture of Kaledin (private communication). More generally, given an associative algebra A0 over ℤp and its flat deformation An over ℤ/pn+1ℤ, we prove that under a certain non-degeneracy condition, the center of An is isomorphic to the ring of length-(n+1) Witt vectors over the center of A0.

Let $RG$ denote the group ring of the group $G$ over the ring $R$. Using an isomorphism between $RG$ and a certain ring of $n\,\times \,n$ matrices in conjunction with other techniques, the structure of the unit group of the group algebra of the dihedral group of order 8 over any finite field of chracteristic 2 is determined in terms of split extensions of cyclic groups.

Let $KG$ be a non-commutative strongly Lie solvable group algebra of a group $G$ over a field $K$ of positive characteristic $p$. In this note we state necessary and sufficient conditions so that the strong Lie derived length of $KG$ assumes its minimal value, namely $\left\lceil {{\log }_{2}}(p\,+\,1) \right\rceil$.

We prove that if G is a non-trivial finite group, then the integral group ring $\mathbb{Z} G$ possesses a superdecomposable pure-injective module.

For each finite group $G$ for which the integral group ring $\mathbb{Z}G$ has only trivial units, we give ring-theoretic conditions for a commutative ring $R$ under which the group ring $RG$ has nontrivial units. Several examples of rings satisfying the conditions and rings not satisfying the conditions are given. In addition, we extend a well-known result for fields by showing that if $R$ is a ring of finite characteristic and $RG$ has only trivial units, then $G$ has order at most 3.

We study group algebras $FG$ which can be graded by a finite abelian group $\Gamma $ such that $FG$ is $\beta $-commutative for a skew-symmetric bicharacter $\beta $ on $\Gamma $ with values in ${{F}^{*}}$.

Let k be a field of characteristic p > 0, G a finite p-solvable group and pm the highest power of p dividing the order of G. We denote by t(G) the nilpotency index of the (Jacobson) radical of the group algebra k[G]. The groups G with t(G) ≥ pm−1 are already classified. The aim of this paper is to classify the p-solvable groups G with pm−2 < t(G) < pm−1 for p odd.

We show that an $\text{RA}$ loop has a torsion-free normal complement in the loop of normalized units of its integral loop ring. We also investigate whether an $\text{RA}$ loop can be normal in its unit loop. Over fields, this can never happen.