Components in characteristic $p$ and Quillen's conjecture

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show that, under mild inductive assumptions, if a group $G$ contains a component that is a simple group of Lie type in characteristic $p$ and $O_p(G)=1$, then the Quillen poset of $G$ at $p$ has nonzero rational homology. In particular, this shows that such components cannot arise in a minimal counterexample to Quillen's conjecture. This result is of particular interest at the prime $p=2$, where the conjecture is still open.

arXiv comment17 pages