Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
In this paper we elucidate the structure of locally soluble absolutely irreducible skew linear groups, and more generally of locally soluble normal subgroups of arbitrary absolutely irreducible skew linear groups. The conclusions are similar to those for soluble such subgroups, but the proofs are not. We also give a couple of applications to the theory of group algebras. Much of our argument works with considerably weaker hypotheses and therefore our methods may well have wider application than just to absolutely irreducible groups.