Automorphisms which fix the centralizers of a group (Q1962590)

Let \(G\) be a group. An automorphism \(\varphi\) of \(G\) is called a central automorphism if it acts trivially on the group \(G/Z(G)\). The set \(\Aut_cG\) of all central automorphisms of \(G\) is a normal subgroup of the full automorphism group \(\Aut G\) of \(G\), and it is well-known that \(\Aut_cG\) contains every automorphism of \(G\) mapping each subgroup onto itself. Let \(\Gamma(G)\) be the set of all automorphisms \(\varphi\) of \(G\) such that \([g,g^\varphi]=1\) for every \(g\in G\), and let \(\Gamma_0(G)\) be the subset of \(\Gamma(G)\) consisting of all automorphisms \(\varphi\) of \(G\) such that \(C_G(g)^\varphi=C_G(g)\) for every \(g\in G\). The author proves that \(\Gamma(G)\) and \(\Gamma_0(G)\) are normal subgroups of \(\Aut G\) containing \(\Aut_cG\), and that the factor group \(\Gamma(G)/\Gamma_0(G)\) has exponent 2. Moreover, \(\Gamma(G)/\Aut_c G\) is Abelian, and hence \(\Gamma(G)\) is Abelian provided that \(Z(G)=\{1\}\). Some of these results are applied to the study of finite groups in which every element commutes with its endomorphic images.