AN EXTENSION OF GOW'S THEOREM

In memory of our good friend and esteemed colleague Gary Seitz We extend Gow's theorem to finite groups G whose generalized Fitting subgroup is Z(G)S for a quasisimple Lie-type group S of simply connected type in characteristic p, and whose center Z(G) has p′-order. Guralnick was partially supported by the NSF (grant DMS-1901595) and a Simons Foundation Fellowship 609771. Tiep was partially supported by the NSF (grant DMS-2200850) and the Joshua Barlaz Chair in Mathematics. The authors are grateful to the referee for a careful reading and helpful comments on the paper.