We characterise finite unitary rings $R$ such that all Sylow subgroups of the group of units $R^{\ast }$ are cyclic. To be precise, we show that, up to isomorphism, $R$ is one of the three types of rings in $\{O,E,O\oplus E\}$, where $O\in \{GF(q),\mathbb{Z}_{p^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}}}\}$ is a ring of odd cardinality and $E$ is a ring of cardinality $2^{n}$ which is one of seven explicitly described types.

We introduce a new method to study rational conjugacy of torsion units in integral group rings using integral and modular representation theory. Employing this new method, we verify the first Zassenhaus conjecture for the group PSL(2, 19). We also prove the Zassenhaus conjecture for PSL(2, 23). In a second application we show that there are no normalized units of order 6 in the integral group rings of M 10 and PGL(2, 9). This completes the proof of a theorem of Kimmerle and Konovalov that shows that the prime graph question has an affirmative answer for all groups having an order divisible by at most three different primes.

Let $R$ be a commutative ring with unity and let $G$ be a group. The group ring $RG$ has a natural involution that maps each element $g\in G$ to its inverse. We denote by $RG^-$ the set of skew symmetric elements under this involution. We study necessary and sufficient conditions for $RG^-$ to be commutative.