Maximal Sylow intersection is tame
Definition
Suppose is a finite group and is a prime number. Suppose is a Maximal Sylow intersection (?): in other words, is an intersection of two -Sylow subgroups such that no intersection of distinct Sylow subgroups has order bigger than the order of . Then, is a tame Sylow intersection: and are both Sylow subgroups of .
Facts used
- Sylow subgroups exist
- Sylow implies order-dominating
- Prime power order implies nilpotent
- Nilpotent implies normalizer condition
Proof
Given: A finite group , a maximal -Sylow intersection .
To prove: is a tame Sylow intersection.
Proof: Suppose is not -Sylow in . We derive a contradiction.
- Let be a -Sylow subgroup of containing : exists by facts (1) and (2). Note that is not contained in .
- Let be a -Sylow subgroup of containing . is distinct from : Such an exists by fact (2). Distinctness follows because, by assumption, is not contained in .
- : The intersection is a -subgroup of containing , which in turn equals .
- is a proper subgroup of : By facts (3) and (4) applied to the group , is a proper subgroup of , so is properly contained in .
- is not a maximal Sylow intersection: Indeed, is an intersection of distinct Sylow subgroups of order bigger than that of .
Thus, we have achieved the desired contradiction.