Base sizes for finite linear groups with solvable stabilisers

Abstract Let 𝐺 be a transitive permutation group on a finite set with solvable point stabiliser and assume that the solvable radical of 𝐺 is trivial. In 2010, Vdovin conjectured that the base size of 𝐺 is at most 5. Burness proved this conjecture in the case of primitive 𝐺. The problem was reduced by Vdovin in 2012 to the case when 𝐺 is an almost simple group. Now the problem is further reduced to groups of Lie type through work of Baykalov and Burness. In this paper, we prove the strong form of the conjecture for all almost simple groups with socle isomorphic to <m:math xmlns:m="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <m:mrow> <m:msub> <m:mi>PSL</m:mi> <m:mi>n</m:mi> </m:msub> <m:mo>⁢</m:mo> <m:mrow> <m:mo stretchy="false">(</m:mo> <m:mi>q</m:mi> <m:mo stretchy="false">)</m:mo> </m:mrow> </m:mrow> </m:math> \mathrm{PSL}_{n}(q) , and the remaining classical groups will be handled in two forthcoming papers.