Every finite abelian group is a subgroup of the additive group of a finite simple left brace

Left braces, introduced by Rump, have turned out to provide an important tool in the study of set theoretic solutions of the quantum Yang-Baxter equation. In particular, they have allowed to construct several new families of solutions. A left brace $(B,+,cdot )$ is a structure determined by two group structures on a set $B$: an abelian group $(B,+)$ and a group $(B,cdot)$, satisfying certain compatibility conditions. The main result of this paper shows that every finite abelian group $A$ is a subgroup of the additive group of a finite simple left brace $B$ with metabelian multiplicative group with abelian Sylow subgroups. This result complements earlier unexpected results of the authors on an abundance of finite simple left braces.