Let G be a finite group. A subgroup A of G is said to be S-permutable in G if A permutes with every Sylow subgroup P of G, that is, $AP=PA$. Let $A_{sG}$ be the subgroup of A generated by all S-permutable subgroups of G contained in A and $A^{sG}$ be the intersection of all S-permutable subgroups of G containing A. We prove that if G is a soluble group, then S-permutability is a transitive relation in G if and only if the nilpotent residual $G^{\mathfrak {N}}$ of G avoids the pair $(A^{s G}, A_{sG})$, that is, $G^{\mathfrak {N}}\cap A^{sG}= G^{\mathfrak {N}}\cap A_{sG}$ for every subnormal subgroup A of G.

Given a finite group G, we denote by $L(G)$ the subgroup lattice of G and by ${\cal CD}(G)$ the Chermak–Delgado lattice of G. In this note, we determine the finite groups G such that $|{\cal CD}(G)|=|L(G)|-k$ , for $k=1,2$ .

The Chermak–Delgado lattice of a finite group G is a self-dual sublattice of the subgroup lattice of G. In this paper, we prove that, for any finite abelian group A, there exists a finite group G such that the Chermak–Delgado lattice of G is a subgroup lattice of A.

For any given subgroup H of a finite group G, the Quillen poset ${\mathcal {A}}_p(G)$ of nontrivial elementary abelian p-subgroups is obtained from ${\mathcal {A}}_p(H)$ by attaching elements via their centralisers in H. We exploit this idea to study Quillen’s conjecture, which asserts that if ${\mathcal {A}}_p(G)$ is contractible then G has a nontrivial normal p-subgroup. We prove that the original conjecture is equivalent to the ${{\mathbb {Z}}}$-acyclic version of the conjecture (obtained by replacing ‘contractible’ by ‘${{\mathbb {Z}}}$-acyclic’). We also work with the ${\mathbb {Q}}$-acyclic (strong) version of the conjecture, reducing its study to extensions of direct products of simple groups of p-rank at least $2$. This allows us to extend results of Aschbacher and Smith and to establish the strong conjecture for groups of p-rank at most $4$.

Given a finite group G, we denote by Δ(G) the graph whose vertices are the proper subgroups of G and in which two vertices H and K are joined by an edge if and only if G = ⟨H, K⟩. We prove that if there exists a finite nilpotent group X with Δ(G) ≅ Δ(X), then G is supersoluble.

Let G be a finite group and σ = {σi| i ∈ I} some partition of the set of all primes $\Bbb{P}$ . Then G is said to be: σ-primary if G is a σi-group for some i; σ-nilpotent if G = G1× … × Gt for some σ-primary groups G1, … , Gt; σ-soluble if every chief factor of G is σ-primary. We use $G^{{\mathfrak{N}}_{\sigma}}$ to denote the σ-nilpotent residual of G, that is, the intersection of all normal subgroups N of G with σ-nilpotent quotient G/N. If G is σ-soluble, then the σ-nilpotent length (denoted by lσ (G)) of G is the length of the shortest normal chain of G with σ-nilpotent factors. Let Nσ (G) be the intersection of the normalizers of the σ-nilpotent residuals of all subgroups of G, that is,

$${N_\sigma }(G) = \bigcap\limits_{H \le G} {{N_G}} ({H^{{_\sigma }}}).$$

Then the subgroup Nσ (G) is called the σ-nilpotent norm of G. We study the relationship of the σ-nilpotent length with the σ-nilpotent norm of G. In particular, we prove that the σ-nilpotent length of a σ-soluble group G is at most r (r > 1) if and only if lσ (G/ Nσ (G)) ≤ r.

Let $G$ be a group and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}=\{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{i}\mid i\in I\}$ some partition of the set of all primes. A subgroup $A$ of $G$ is $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-subnormal in $G$ if there is a subgroup chain $A=A_{0}\leq A_{1}\leq \cdots \leq A_{m}=G$ such that either $A_{i-1}\unlhd A_{i}$ or $A_{i}/(A_{i-1})_{A_{i}}$ is a finite $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{j}$-group for some $j=j(i)$ for $i=1,\ldots ,m$, and it is modular in $G$ if $\langle X,A\cap Z\rangle =\langle X,A\rangle \cap Z$ when $X\leq Z\leq G$ and $\langle A,Y\cap Z\rangle =\langle A,Y\rangle \cap Z$ when $Y\leq G$ and $A\leq Z\leq G$. The group $G$ is called $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-soluble if every chief factor $H/K$ of $G$ is a finite $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{i}$-group for some $i=i(H/K)$. In this paper, we describe finite $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-soluble groups in which every $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-subnormal subgroup is modular.

Let $G$ be a finite almost simple group. It is well known that $G$ can be generated by three elements, and in previous work we showed that 6 generators suffice for all maximal subgroups of $G$. In this paper, we consider subgroups at the next level of the subgroup lattice—the so-called second maximal subgroups. We prove that with the possible exception of some families of rank 1 groups of Lie type, the number of generators of every second maximal subgroup of $G$ is bounded by an absolute constant. We also show that such a bound holds without any exceptions if and only if there are only finitely many primes $r$ for which there is a prime power $q$ such that $(q^{r}-1)/(q-1)$ is prime. The latter statement is a formidable open problem in Number Theory. Applications to random generation and polynomial growth are also given.

Let $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}=\{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{i}\mid i\in I\}$ be a partition of the set of all primes $\mathbb{P}$. Let $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{0}\in \unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}\subseteq \unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$ and let $\mathfrak{I}$ be a class of finite $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{0}$-groups which is closed under extensions, epimorphic images and subgroups. We say that a finite group $G$ is $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}_{\mathfrak{I}}$-primary provided $G$ is either an $\mathfrak{I}$-group or a $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{i}$-group for some $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{i}\in \unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}\setminus \{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{0}\}$ and we say that a subgroup $A$ of an arbitrary group $G^{\ast }$ is $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}_{\mathfrak{I}}$-subnormal in $G^{\ast }$ if there is a subgroup chain $A=A_{0}\leq A_{1}\leq \cdots \leq A_{t}=G^{\ast }$ such that either $A_{i-1}\unlhd A_{i}$ or $A_{i}/(A_{i-1})_{A_{i}}$ is $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}_{\mathfrak{I}}$-primary for all $i=1,\ldots ,t$. We prove that the set ${\mathcal{L}}_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}_{\mathfrak{I}}}(G)$ of all $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}_{\mathfrak{I}}$-subnormal subgroups of $G$ forms a sublattice of the lattice of all subgroups of $G$ and we describe the conditions under which the lattice ${\mathcal{L}}_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}_{\mathfrak{I}}}(G)$ is modular.

In this note we study the finite groups whose subgroup lattices are dismantlable.

Let A be a finite group acting fixed-point freely on a finite (solvable) group G. A longstanding conjecture is that if (|G|, |A|) = 1, then the Fitting length of G is bounded by the length of the longest chain of subgroups of A. It is expected that the conjecture is true when the coprimeness condition is replaced by the assumption that A is nilpotent. We establish the conjecture without the coprimeness condition in the case where A is an abelian group whose order is a product of three odd primes and where the Sylow 2-subgroups of G are abelian.

We give a qualitative description of the set 𝒪G(H) of overgroups in G of primitive subgroups H of finite alternating and symmetric groups G, and particularly of the maximal overgroups. We then show that certain weak restrictions on the lattice 𝒪G(H) impose strong restrictions on H and its overgroup lattice.

We relate the coefficients of the probabilistic zeta function of a finite monolithic group to those of an almost simple group.

In this paper, we give a lower bound of the p-part of the reduced Euler characteristic of the order complex of the centric p-radical subgroups by studying vertices of indecomposable summands of the reduced Lefschetz module. This bound is in fact best possible for at least some groups, and also provides a uniform explanation of the observed phenomenon on the reduced Euler characteristic for some sporadic simple groups.

Hypercentrally embedded subgroups of finite groups can be characterized in terms of permutability as those subgroups which permute with all pronormal subgroups of the group. Despite that, in general, hypercentrally embedded subgroups do not permute with the intersection of pronormal subgroups, in this paper we prove that they permute with certain relevant types of subgroups which can be described as intersections of pronormal subgroups. We prove that hypercentrally embedded subgroups permute with subgroups of prefrattini type, which are intersections of maximal subgroups, and with F-normalizers, for a saturated formation F. In the soluble universe, F-normalizers can be described as intersection of some pronormal subgroups of the group.

A subgroup H of a finite G is said to be c-normal in G if there exists a normal subgroup N of G such that G = HN with H ∩ N ≤ HG = CoreG(H). We are interested in studying the influence of the c–normality of certain subgroups of prime power order on the structure of finite groups.