A New Characterization of Sporadic Groups

Abstract

Let $G$ be a finite group, $n$ a positive integer. $\pi (n)$ denotes the set of all prime divisors of $n$ and $\pi (G)=\pi (|G|)$. The prime graph $\Gamma (G)$ of $G$, defined by Grenberg and Kegel, is a graph whose vertex set is $\pi (G)$, two vertices $p,q$ in $\pi (G)$ joined by an edge if and only if $G$ contains an element of order $pq$. In this article, a new characterization of sporadic simple groups is obtained, that is, if $G$ is a finite group and $S$ a sporadic simple group. Then $G\cong S$ if and only if $|G|=|S|$ and $\Gamma (G)$ is disconnected. This characterization unifies the several characterizations that can conclude the group has non-connected prime graphs, hence several known characterizations of sporadic simple groups become the corollaries of this new characterization.