RECOGNITION OF THE PROJECTIVE GENERAL LINEAR GROUP PGL(2, q) BY ITS NONCOMMUTING GRAPH

Abstract

The noncommuting graph ∇(G) of a non-abelian group G is defined as follows. The vertex set of ∇(G) is G\Z(G) where Z(G) denotes the center of G and two vertices x and y are adjacent if and only if xy ≠ yx. It has been conjectured that if P is a finite non-abelian simple group and G is a group such that ∇(P) ≅ ∇(G), then G ≅ P. In the present paper, our aim is to consider this conjecture in the case of finite almost simple groups. In fact, we characterize the projective general linear group PGL (2, q) (q is a prime power), which is also an almost simple group, by its noncommuting graph.