On the invariants of finite groups arising in a topological quantum field theory

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate structural properties of finite groups that are detected by certain group invariants arising from Dijkgraaf--Witten theory, a topological quantum field theory, in one space and one time dimension. In this setting, each finite group $G$ determines a family of numerical invariants associated with closed orientable surfaces, expressed in terms of the degrees of the complex irreducible characters of $G$. These invariants can be viewed as natural extensions of the commuting probability $d(G)$, which measures the likelihood that two randomly chosen elements of $G$ commute and has been extensively studied in the literature. By analyzing these higher-genus analogues, we establish new quantitative criteria relating the values of these invariants to key structural features of finite groups, such as commutativity, nilpotency, supersolvability and solvability. Our results generalize several classical theorems concerning the commuting probability, thereby linking ideas from finite group theory and topological quantum field theory.