An Adjacency Criterion for the Prime Graph of a Finite Simple Group

For every finite non-Abelian simple group, we give an exhaustive arithmetic criterion for adjacency of vertices in a prime graph of the group. For the prime graph of every finite simple group, this criterion is used to determine an independent set with a maximal number of vertices and an independent set with a maximal number of vertices containing 2, and to define orders on these sets; the information obtained is collected in tables. We consider several applications of these results to various problems in finite group theory, in particular, to the recognition-by-spectra problem for finite groups.