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Main Authors: Eberhard, Sean, Maini, Elena, Sabatini, Luca, Tracey, Gareth
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.15303
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author Eberhard, Sean
Maini, Elena
Sabatini, Luca
Tracey, Gareth
author_facet Eberhard, Sean
Maini, Elena
Sabatini, Luca
Tracey, Gareth
contents We prove a strong general-purpose bound for the diameter of a finite group depending only on the diameters of its composition factors and the maximal exponent of a normal abelian section. There are a number of notable applications: (1) if $G$ is a finite soluble group of exponent $e$, $\mathrm{diam}(G) \ll e (\log |G|)^8$, (2) anabelian groups with bounded-rank composition factors have polylogarithmic diameter, (3) transitive soluble subgroups of $S_n$ have diameter $\ll n^5$, and (4) Grigorchuk's gap conjecture holds for any finitely generated group acting faithfully on a bounded-degree rooted tree. Additionally, conditional on Babai's conjecture, (5) any transitive permutation group of degree $n$ has diameter bounded by a polynomial in $n$ (a folkloric conjecture), and (6) Grigorchuk's gap conjecture holds for residually finite groups, and thus the conjecture reduces to the simple case.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_15303
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Diameter bounds for arbitrary finite groups and applications
Eberhard, Sean
Maini, Elena
Sabatini, Luca
Tracey, Gareth
Group Theory
20F69, 20D60, 05C25
We prove a strong general-purpose bound for the diameter of a finite group depending only on the diameters of its composition factors and the maximal exponent of a normal abelian section. There are a number of notable applications: (1) if $G$ is a finite soluble group of exponent $e$, $\mathrm{diam}(G) \ll e (\log |G|)^8$, (2) anabelian groups with bounded-rank composition factors have polylogarithmic diameter, (3) transitive soluble subgroups of $S_n$ have diameter $\ll n^5$, and (4) Grigorchuk's gap conjecture holds for any finitely generated group acting faithfully on a bounded-degree rooted tree. Additionally, conditional on Babai's conjecture, (5) any transitive permutation group of degree $n$ has diameter bounded by a polynomial in $n$ (a folkloric conjecture), and (6) Grigorchuk's gap conjecture holds for residually finite groups, and thus the conjecture reduces to the simple case.
title Diameter bounds for arbitrary finite groups and applications
topic Group Theory
20F69, 20D60, 05C25
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.15303