6533b82bfe1ef96bd128d580

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Real constituents of permutation characters

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Abstract We prove a broad generalization of a theorem of W. Burnside about the existence of real characters of finite groups to permutation characters. If G is a finite group, under the necessary hypothesis of O 2 ′ ( G ) = G , we can also give some control on the parity of multiplicities of the constituents of permutation characters (a result that needs the Classification of Finite Simple Groups). Along the way, we give a new characterization of the 2-closed finite groups using odd-order real elements of the group. All this can be seen as a contribution to Brauer's Problem 11 which asks how much information about subgroups of a finite group can be determined by the character table.