Powerfully nilpotent groups (Q1712472)

A \(p\)-group \(G\) is called powerful if \(G^\prime \leq G^p\) (\(p\) odd) or \(G^\prime \leq G^4\) (\(p = 2\)). The authors of this paper study an interesting subclass of powerful groups. A \(p\)-group \(G\) is called powerfully nilpotent if there is a ascending central series \(1 =H_0 \leq H_1\leq \dots \leq H_n = G\) such that \([H_i,G] \leq H_{i-1}^p\), \(i = 1, \ldots , n\). An easy observation is that for a powerful group \(G\) the groups \(\Phi (G)\), \(G^{p^{i}}\) are all powerfully nilpotent. In this paper the authors start a theory of powerfully nilpotent groups, introduce a powerful nilpotency class and study the growth of powerfully nilpotent groups of order \(p^n\) and exponent \(p^2\) for \(p\) odd.