Association schemes with at most two nonlinear irreducible characters and applications to finite groups

An irreducible character $\chi$ of an association scheme is called nonlinear if the multiplicity of $\chi$ is greater than $1$. The main result of this paper gives a characterization of commutative association schemes with at most two nonlinear irreducible characters. This yields a characterization of finite groups with at most two nonlinear irreducible characters. A class of noncommutative association schemes with at most two nonlinear irreducible character is also given.