Research
My research interests are primarily in the area of (finite) group theory. I have an interest in the theory of p-groups and the theory of group automorphisms. I am especially interested in the commuting probability in finite groups and related things. I also have some interest in the ordinary representation theory (or at least, the character theory) of finite groups.
More recently, I have developed an interest compact topological groups and profinite groups. I have been working on extending some results on commutativity in finite groups to these.
Publications
- R. Heffernan, D. MacHale, A. Ni She: Restrictions on commutativity ratios in finite groups (in preparation).
- R. Heffernan, D. MacHale, C. Roney-Dougal: Soluble OCIC Groups (in preparation).
- J. Curran, R. Heffernan and D. MacHale: On the Order of the Automorphism Group of a Finite Group in Communications in Algebra (to appear).
- E. C. Freuder, R. Heffernan, R. J. Wallace and N. Wilson: Lexicographically-ordered Constraint Satisfaction Problems in Constraints, 15 (1), 1383-7133 (2010).
- R. Heffernan and D. MacHale: On the sum of the character degrees of a finite group in Mathematical Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 108A (1), 57-63 (2008).
- E. C. Freuder, R. Heffernan and R. J. Wallace: Ordinal constraint satisfaction in The Proceedings of 5th International Workshop on Soft Constraints, 2003.