Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 April 2009
Suppose that the finite group G acts faithfully and irreducibly on the finite G-module V of characteristic p not dividing |G|. The well-known k(GV)-problem states that in this situation, if k(G V) is the number of conjugacy classes of the semidirect product GV, then k(GV) ≤ |V|. For p—solvable groups, this is equivalent to Brauer's famous k(B)-problem. In 1996, Robinson and Thompson proved the k(GV) problem for large p. This ultimately led to a complete proof of the k(GV)-problem. In this paper, we present a new proof of the k(G V)-problem for large p.