On the coincidence of the central and absolute central automorphism groups of finite \(p\)-groups (Q2192153)

A well-known result of \textit{I. Schur} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 127, 20--50 (1904; JFM 35.0155.01)] states that for any group \(G\), if \(G/Z(G)\) is finite, then so is \(G'\) (the commutator subgroup of \(G\)). \textit{P. Hegarty} [J. Algebra 169, 929--935 (1994; Zbl 0817.20037)] proved an analog of the Schur's theorem which states that if \(G/L(G)\) is finite, then so is \(G^{\ast}\), where \(L(G)\) and \(G^{\ast}\) are the absolute center and the autocommutator subgroup of \(G\), respectively, defined as follows: \[L(G)=\{g\in G\mid \alpha(g)=g, \forall \alpha\in \Aut(G)\},\] \[G^{\ast}=\langle g^{-1}\alpha(g)\mid g\in G, \alpha\in \Aut(G)\rangle.\] One can easily see that if \(\alpha\) runs in the set of all inner automorphisms of \(G\), then the above two normal subgroups of \(G\) turn into \(Z(G)\) and \(G'\), respectively. Hegarty [loc. cit.] defines a certain automorphism group to prove his result, as: \[\mathrm{Var}(G)=\{\alpha\in \Aut(G)\mid g^{-1}\alpha(g)\in L(G),\ \forall g\in G\}.\] He actually proves that \(G/L(G)\) is finite \(\Rightarrow\) \(\mathrm{Var}(G)\) is finite \(\Leftrightarrow\) \(G^{\ast}\) is finite. \textit{M. R. R. Moghaddam} and \textit{H. Safa} [Ric. Mat. 59, 257--264 (2010; Zbl 1218.20023)] studied \(\mathrm{Var}(G)\) and named it the autocentral automorphism group of \(G\), which is clearly a normal subgroup of \(\Aut(G)\) contained in the central automorphism group \(\Aut_c(G)\) of \(G\). In the paper under review, \(\mathrm{Var}(G)\) is called the absolute central automorphism group and a necessary and sufficient condition is given under which \(\mathrm{Var}(G)=\Aut_c(G)\) for a finite non-abelian \(p\)-group \(G\). A necessary and sufficient condition under which \(C_{\mathrm{Var}(G)}(Z(G))=\Aut_c(G)\) is also provided, where \(C_{\mathrm{Var}(G)}(Z(G))\) denotes the set of all absolute central automorphisms of \(G\) that fix the center element-wise.