(2,3,7)-generated groups of small rank

Chiara Tamburini, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Friday May 19, 2.30-3.15, Groups in Galway 2006

A group G is said to be (2,3,7)-generated (or Hurwitz, if finite) if it can be generated by two elements x,y, of respective orders 2 and 3, such that xy has order 7. In this talk, after a brief survey of the finite simple groups that are known to be Hurwitz, I will concentrate on the irreducible (2,3,7)-generated subgroups of PGLn(F), where F is an algebraically closed field of characteristic p (possibly 0) and n is small. It is possible to give a full classification for n<=5. The same methods lead to the discovery of new Hurwitz groups for n=6,7.