Products of free groups in the unit group of integral group rings (Q1911632)

The paper classifies those nilpotent finite groups \(G\) such that the group of units of \(\mathbb{Z} G\) has a subgroup \(U\) of finite index such that \(U\) is a direct product of non cyclic free groups. The authors prove that this phenomenon happens if and only if each Wedderburn component of the group ring over the rationals is either a field, the rational quaternions or a 2 by 2 matrix ring over the rational numbers. Using this, the authors give a complete list of those groups \(G\) as explicitly described quotients of a certain series of metabelian 2-groups. Finally the authors describe some properties of these groups \(G\) and their integral group rings.