Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Groups and semigroups: connections and contrasts
- 2 Toward the classification of s-arc transitive graphs
- 3 Non-cancellation group computation for some finitely generated nilpotent groups
- 4 Permutation and quasi-permutation representations of the Chevalley groups
- 5 The shape of solvable groups with odd order
- 6 Embedding in finitely presented lattice-ordered groups: explicit presentations for constructions
- 7 A note on abelian subgroups of p-groups
- 8 On kernel flatness
- 9 On proofs in finitely presented groups
- 10 Computing with 4-Engel groups
- 11 On the size of the commutator subgroup in finite groups
- 12 Groups of infinite matrices
- 13 Triply factorised groups and nearrings
- 14 On the space of cyclic trigonal Riemann surfaces of genus 4
- 15 On simple Kn-groups for n = 5, 6
- 16 Products of Sylow subgroups and the solvable radical
- 17 On commutators in groups
- 18 Inequalities for the Baer invariant of finite groups
- 19 Automorphisms with centralizers of small rank
- 20 2-signalizers and normalizers of Sylow 2-subgroups in finite simple groups
- 21 On properties of abnormal and pronormal subgroups in some infinite groups
- 22 P-localizing group extensions
- 23 On the n-covers of exceptional groups of Lie type
- 24 Positively discriminating groups
- 25 Automorphism groups of some chemical graphs
- 26 On c-normal subgroups of some classes of finite groups
- 27 Fong characters and their fields of values
- 28 Arithmetical properties of finite groups
- 29 On prefrattini subgroups of finite groups: a survey
- 30 Frattini extensions and class field theory
- 31 The nilpotency class of groups with fixed point free automorphisms of prime order
31 - The nilpotency class of groups with fixed point free automorphisms of prime order
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 April 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Groups and semigroups: connections and contrasts
- 2 Toward the classification of s-arc transitive graphs
- 3 Non-cancellation group computation for some finitely generated nilpotent groups
- 4 Permutation and quasi-permutation representations of the Chevalley groups
- 5 The shape of solvable groups with odd order
- 6 Embedding in finitely presented lattice-ordered groups: explicit presentations for constructions
- 7 A note on abelian subgroups of p-groups
- 8 On kernel flatness
- 9 On proofs in finitely presented groups
- 10 Computing with 4-Engel groups
- 11 On the size of the commutator subgroup in finite groups
- 12 Groups of infinite matrices
- 13 Triply factorised groups and nearrings
- 14 On the space of cyclic trigonal Riemann surfaces of genus 4
- 15 On simple Kn-groups for n = 5, 6
- 16 Products of Sylow subgroups and the solvable radical
- 17 On commutators in groups
- 18 Inequalities for the Baer invariant of finite groups
- 19 Automorphisms with centralizers of small rank
- 20 2-signalizers and normalizers of Sylow 2-subgroups in finite simple groups
- 21 On properties of abnormal and pronormal subgroups in some infinite groups
- 22 P-localizing group extensions
- 23 On the n-covers of exceptional groups of Lie type
- 24 Positively discriminating groups
- 25 Automorphism groups of some chemical graphs
- 26 On c-normal subgroups of some classes of finite groups
- 27 Fong characters and their fields of values
- 28 Arithmetical properties of finite groups
- 29 On prefrattini subgroups of finite groups: a survey
- 30 Frattini extensions and class field theory
- 31 The nilpotency class of groups with fixed point free automorphisms of prime order
Summary
Abstract
In 1959, Thompson proved that a group with a fixed point free automorphism of prime order must be nilpotent. G. Higman had already asked whether one could say anything about their nilpotency class. We survey the literature on this question and give an improvement on the bound for the nilpotency class.
Introduction
Thompson proved, in his thesis of 1959, that groups with fixed point free automorphisms of prime order are nilpotent. Such groups are exactly the Frobenius kernels and Frobenius had conjectured that they must be nilpotent. This conjecture was informed by two fairly simple results; a group with a fixed point free automorphism of order 2 is abelian and a group with a fixed point free automorphism of order 3 is nilpotent. Proofs may be found in Chapter 10 of.
This last result can, via a simple argument, be strengthened to give that a group with a fixed point free automorphism of order 3 is nilpotent of class at most 2. This was first published by Neumann, see and. This led G. Higman to ask in of 1959 whether a group with a fixed point free automorphism of order p must be of nilpotency class at most some number, now called h(p) in honor of Higman. He proved that in fact such a number does exist.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Groups St Andrews 2005 , pp. 685 - 701Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007