Groups in which the centralizer of a subgroup is of bounded order (Q1191438)

Four theorems are proved stating, under various additional hypotheses, that if \(G\) is a group containing a finite subgroup \(H\) with finite centralizer \(C_ G(H)\), then \(G\) is finite, and its order is bounded in terms of the orders of \(H\) and \(C_ G(H)\). The proofs use elementary methods. In fact the first two theorems are slightly more general, in that they deal with a group of automorphisms rather than a subgroup. Theorem 1. Let \(G\) be a 2-group of finite exponent \(2^ e\), and let \(A\) be a group of automorphisms of \(G\) of order \(2^ d\). If \(C_ G(A)\) is finite, then \(G\) is finite, and \(| G|\leq| C_ G(A)|^{(e+1)^ d}\). Here no hypothesis of local finiteness is needed, but the finiteness of the exponent is a strong restriction. Theorem 2 is an analogue for odd primes. Here, because of structure of the infinite Burnside groups as established by Adyan, \(G\) is assumed locally finite. The bound for \(| G|\) obtained is less explicit. Theorem 4 is an analogue of Theorem 2, in which it is only assumed that every two elements of \(G\) generate a nilpotent subgroup, but \(A\) is taken to be a group of inner automorphisms. Theorem 3 is as follows. Let \(G\) be a nilpotent group of class \(k\), and let \(H\) be a finitely generated subgroup of \(G\). Thus \(H\) is polycyclic; suppose it has a series of length \(d\) with cyclic factors. If \(C_ G(H)\) is finite then so is \(G\), and \(| G|\leq| C_ G(H)|^{k^ d}\).