The genus of low rank Hamiltonian groups (Q2276973)

The genus of a group G is the least possible genus of an orientable surface in which some Cayley graph for G can be embedded. A Hamiltonian group is a non-Abelian group for which every subgroup is normal. Every Hamiltonian group is the (unique) direct product of the quaternion group of order eight, an Abelian group of odd order of rank r and the direct product of s copies of the cyclic group of order 2. The genus of Hamiltonian groups with \(r\leq 1\) or \(r\leq s+1\) is (in most cases) known. The authors of the present paper give upper and lower bounds for the genus in many new cases \((r=2\) and \(s\leq 3\) resp. \(r=3\) and \(s\leq 2)\). There are still 18 Hamiltonian groups of order at most 1000 for which the genus is unknown.