On CT and CSA groups and related ideas (Q311060)

A group is \textit{commutative transitive} or CT if commuting is transitive (as a binary relation) on nontrivial elements. A subgroup \(H\) of a group \(G\) is \textit{malnormal,} if \(H \cap gHg^{-1}\) is trivial for every \(g \in G \setminus H\). A group is \textit{conjugately separated abelian} or CSA if maximal abelian subgroups are malnormal. These concepts have played a prominent role in the studies of fully residually free groups, limit groups and discriminating groups. They also play a role in the solution to the Tarski problems. The class of CSA groups is a proper subclass of the class of CT groups. For limit groups and finitely generated elementary free groups they are equivalent. The authors show that a finite CSA group must be abelian. When \(G\) is CT, they prove that \(G\) is not CSA if and only if \(G\) contains a nonabelian subgroup \(G_0\) which contains a nontrivial abelian subgroup \(H\) that is normal in \(G_0\). For a field \(K\), the group \(\mathrm{PSL}(2,K) \) is never CSA but is CT if \(\operatorname{char}(K)=2\) and for fields \(K\) of characteristic 0 where \(-1\) is not a sum of two squares in \(K\). For odd characteristic \(p\), \(\mathrm{PSL}(2,K)\) is never CT. Infinite CT groups \(G\) with a composition series and having no nontrivial normal abelian subgroup must be monolithic with monolith a simple nonabelian CT group. Further, if a group \(G\) is monolithic with monolith \(N\) isomorphic to \(\mathrm{PSL}(2,K)\) for a field \(K\) of characteristic 2 and \(G\) is CT, then \(G\) and \(N\) are isomorphic. A group is said to be monolithic if it has a unique minimal normal subgroup, and this is contained in every nontrivial normal subgroup. This minimal normal subgroup is termed a monolith.