Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 May 2016
Let $G$ be a finite group and
$\mathsf{cd}(G)$ denote the set of complex irreducible character degrees of
$G$. We prove that if
$G$ is a finite group and
$H$ is an almost simple group whose socle is a sporadic simple group
$H_{0}$ and such that
$\mathsf{cd}(G)=\mathsf{cd}(H)$, then
$G^{\prime }\cong H_{0}$ and there exists an abelian subgroup
$A$ of
$G$ such that
$G/A$ is isomorphic to
$H$. In view of Huppert’s conjecture, we also provide some examples to show that
$G$ is not necessarily a direct product of
$A$ and
$H$, so that we cannot extend the conjecture to almost simple groups.