Implications of the index of a fixed point subgroup (Q2177972)

Summary: Let \(G\) be a finite group and \(A \leq \Aut(G)\). The index \(|G : C_G(A)|\) is called the index of \(A\) in \(G\) and is denoted by \(\mathrm{Ind}_G(A)\). In this paper, we study the influence of \(\mathrm{Ind}_G(A)\) on the structure of \(G\) and prove that \([G, A]\) is solvable in case where \(A\) is cyclic, \(\mathrm{Ind}_G(A)\) is squarefree and the orders of \(G\) and \(A\) are coprime. Moreover, for arbitrary \(A \leq \Aut(G)\) whose order is coprime to the order of \(G\), we show that when \([G,A]\) is solvable, the Fitting height of \([G,A]\) is bounded above by the number of primes (counted with multiplicities) dividing \(\mathrm{Ind}_G(A)\) and this bound is best possible.