In mathematics, specifically group theory, finite groups of prime power order , for a fixed prime number and varying integer exponents , are briefly called finitep-groups.
The p-group generation algorithm by M. F. Newman
[1]
and E. A. O'Brien
[2][3]
is a recursive process for constructing the descendant tree
of an assigned finite p-group which is taken as the root of the tree.
For a finite p-group , the lower exponent-p central series (briefly lower p-central series) of
is a descending series of characteristic subgroups of ,
defined recursively by
and , for .
Since any non-trivial finite p-group is nilpotent,
there exists an integer such that
and is called the exponent-p class (briefly p-class) of .
Only the trivial group has .
Generally, for any finite p-group ,
its p-class can be defined as .
The complete lower p-central series of is therefore given by
,
since is the Frattini subgroup of .
For the convenience of the reader and for pointing out the shifted numeration, we recall that
the (usual) lower central series of is also a descending series of characteristic subgroups of ,
defined recursively by
and , for .
As above, for any non-trivial finite p-group ,
there exists an integer such that
and is called the nilpotency class of ,
whereas is called the index of nilpotency of .
Only the trivial group has .
The complete lower central series of is given by
,
since is the commutator subgroup or derived subgroup of .
The following Rules should be remembered for the exponent-p class:
Rule: Let . If , then , for all , in particular, , for all .
Parents and descendant trees[]
The parent of a finite non-trivial p-group with exponent-p class
is defined as the quotient of by the last non-trivial term of the lower exponent-p central series of .
Conversely, in this case, is called an immediate descendant of .
The p-classes of parent and immediate descendant are connected by .
A descendant tree is a hierarchical structure
for visualizing parent-descendant relations
between isomorphism classes of finite p-groups.
The vertices of a descendant tree are isomorphism classes of finite p-groups.
However, a vertex will always be labelled by selecting a representative of the corresponding isomorphism class.
Whenever a vertex is the parent of a vertex
a directed edge of the descendant tree is defined by
in the direction of the canonical projection onto the quotient .
In a descendant tree, the concepts of parents and immediate descendants can be generalized.
A vertex is a descendant of a vertex ,
and is an ancestor of ,
if either is equal to
or there is a path
, where ,
of directed edges from to .
The vertices forming the path necessarily coincide with the iterated parents of , with :
, where .
They can also be viewed as the successive quotientsof p-class of
when the p-class of is given by :
, where .
In particular, every non-trivial finite p-group defines a maximal path (consisting of edges)
ending in the trivial group .
The last but one quotient of the maximal path of is the elementary abelian p-group of rank ,
where denotes the generator rank of .
Generally, the descendant treeof a vertex is the subtree of all descendants of , starting at the root.
The maximal possible descendant tree of the trivial group contains all finite p-groups and is exceptional,
since the trivial group has all the infinitely many elementary abelian p-groups with varying generator rank as its immediate descendants.
However, any non-trivial finite p-group (of order divisible by ) possesses only finitely many immediate descendants.
p-covering group, p-multiplicator and nucleus[]
Let be a finite p-group with generators.
Our goal is to compile a complete list of pairwise non-isomorphic immediate descendants of .
It turns out that all immediate descendants can be obtained as quotients of a certain extension of
which is called the p-covering group of and can be constructed in the following manner.
where denotes the free group with generators and is an epimorphism with kernel .
Then is a normal subgroup of consisting of the defining relations for .
For elements and ,
the conjugate and thus also the commutator are contained in .
Consequently, is a characteristic subgroup of ,
and the p-multiplicator of is an elementary abelian p-group, since
.
Now we can define the p-covering group of by
,
and the exact sequence
shows that is an extension of by the elementary abelian p-multiplicator.
We call
the p-multiplicator rank of .
Let us assume now that the assigned finite p-group is of p-class .
Then the conditions and imply , according to the rule (R3),
and we can define the nucleus of by
as a subgroup of the p-multiplicator.
Consequently, the nuclear rank
of is bounded from above by the p-multiplicator rank.
Allowable subgroups of the p-multiplicator[]
As before, let be a finite p-group with generators.
Proposition.
Any p-elementary abelian central extension
of
by a p-elementary abelian subgroup such that
is a quotient of the p-covering group of .
The reason is that, since , there exists an epimorphism such that
, where denotes the canonical projection.
Consequently, we have
and thus .
Further, , since is p-elementary,
and , since is central.
Together this shows that
and thus induces the desired epimorphism
such that .
In particular, an immediate descendant of is a p-elementary abelian central extension
of ,
since
implies and ,
where .
Definition.
A subgroup of the p-multiplicator of is called allowable
if it is given by the kernel of an epimorphism
onto an immediate descendant of .
An equivalent characterization is that is a proper subgroup which supplements the nucleus
.
Therefore, the first part of our goal to compile a list of all immediate descendants of is done,
when we have constructed all allowable subgroups of which supplement the nucleus ,
where .
However, in general the list
,
where ,
will be redundant,
due to isomorphisms among the immediate descendants.
Orbits under extended automorphisms[]
Two allowable subgroups and are called equivalent if the quotients ,
that are the corresponding immediate descendants of , are isomorphic.
Such an isomorphism between immediate descendants of with has the property that
and thus induces an automorphism of
which can be extended to an automorphism of the p-covering group of .
The restriction of this extended automorphism to the p-multiplicator of is determined uniquely by .
Since ,
each extended automorphism induces a permutation of the allowable subgroups .
We define to be the permutation group generated by all permutations induced by automorphisms of .
Then the map , is an epimorphism
and the equivalence classes of allowable subgroups are precisely the orbits of allowable subgroups under the action of the permutation group .
Eventually, our goal to compile a list of all immediate descendants of will be done,
when we select a representative for each of the orbits of allowable subgroups of under the action of . This is precisely what the p-group generation algorithm does in a single step of the recursive procedure for constructing the descendant tree of an assigned root.
Capable p-groups and step sizes[]
A finite p-group is called capable (or extendable) if it possesses at least one immediate descendant, otherwise it is terminal (or a leaf). The nuclear rank of admits a decision about the capability of :
is terminal if and only if .
is capable if and only if .
In the case of capability, has immediate descendants of different step sizes, in dependence on the index of the corresponding allowable subgroup in the p-multiplicator . When is of order , then an immediate descendant of step size is of order .
For the related phenomenon of multifurcation of a descendant tree at a vertex with nuclear rank see the article on descendant trees.
The p-group generation algorithm provides the flexibility to restrict the construction of immediate descendants to those of a single fixed step size , which is very convenient in the case of huge descendant numbers (see the next section).
Numbers of immediate descendants[]
We denote the number of all immediate descendants, resp. immediate descendants of step size, of by , resp. . Then we have .
As concrete examples, we present some interesting finite metabelian p-groups with extensive sets of immediate descendants, using the SmallGroups identifiers and additionally pointing out the numbers of capable immediate descendants in the usual format as given by actual implementations of the p-group generation algorithm in the computer algebra systems GAP and MAGMA.
First, let .
We begin with groups having abelianization of type .
See Figure 4 in the article on descendant trees.
The group of coclass has ranks , and descendant numbers , .
The group of coclass has ranks , and descendant numbers , .
One of its immediate descendants, the group , has ranks , and descendant numbers , .
In contrast, groups with abelianization of type are partially located beyond the limit of computability.
The group of coclass has ranks , and descendant numbers , .
The group of coclass has ranks , and descendant numbers , unknown.
The group of coclass has ranks , and descendant numbers , unknown.
Next, let .
Corresponding groups with abelianization of type have bigger descendant numbers than for .
The group of coclass has ranks , and descendant numbers , .
The group of coclass has ranks , and descendant numbers , .
Schur multiplier[]
Via the isomorphism ,
the quotient group
can be viewed as the additive analogue of the multiplicative group of all roots of unity.
Let be a prime number and be a finite p-group with presentation as in the previous section.
Then the second cohomology group of the -module
is called the Schur multiplier of . It can also be interpreted as the quotient group .
I. R. Shafarevich
[4]
has proved that the difference between the relation rank of
and the generator rank of is given by the minimal number of generators of the Schur multiplier of ,
that is .
N. Boston and H. Nover
[5]
have shown that ,
for all quotients of p-class , ,
of a pro-p group with finite abelianization .
Furthermore, J. Blackhurst (in the appendix On the nucleus of certain p-groups of a paper by N. Boston, M. R. Bush and F. Hajir
[6])
has proved that a non-cyclic finite p-group with trivial Schur multiplier
is a terminal vertex in the descendant tree of the trivial group ,
that is, .
Examples[]
A finite p-group has a balanced presentation if and only if , that is, if and only if its Schur multiplier is trivial. Such a group is called a Schur group and it must be a leaf in the descendant tree .
A finite p-group satisfies if and only if , that is, if and only if it has a non-trivial cyclic Schur multiplier . Such a group is called a Schur+1 group.
References[]
^
Newman, M. F. (1977). Determination of groups of prime-power order. pp. 73-84, in: Group Theory, Canberra, 1975, Lecture Notes in Math., Vol. 573, Springer, Berlin.
^
Holt, D. F., Eick, B., O'Brien, E. A. (2005). Handbook of computational group theory. Discrete mathematics and its applications, Chapman and Hall/CRC Press.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Shafarevich, I. R. (1963). "Extensions with given points of ramification". Inst. Hautes Études Sci. Publ. Math. 18: 71–95. Translasted in Amer. Math. Soc. Transl. (2), 59: 128-149, (1966).
^
Boston, N., Nover, H. (2006). Computing pro-p Galois groups. Proceedings of the 7th Algorithmic Number Theory Symposium 2006, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4076, 1-10, Springer, Berlin.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^
Boston, N., Bush, M. R., Hajir, F. (2013). "Heuristics for p-class towers of imaginary quadratic fields". Math. Ann. arXiv:1111.4679.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)