Some commutativity criteria (Q2277577)

The authors define the group G to be a \(P_ n\)-group if every two sets of n elements of G commute (that is \(XY=YX\) whenever X and Y are sets of elements of G such that \(| X| =| Y| =n)\). They prove that for every positive integer n, infinite \(P_ n\)-groups are abelian (Theorem B). They then define the class \(P_ n^*\) as the class of groups in which every infinite set of sets of n elements contains a pair of different commuting sets. It is known that the \(P^*_ 1\)-groups are the centre-by-finite groups (Theorem A). The authors show that infinite \(P^*_ 2\)-groups and infinite \(P^*_ 3\)-groups are abelian (Corollaries 1 and 2), and conjecture that the same holds for infinite \(P^*_ n\)-groups for all integers \(n\geq 2\). In this direction they prove that this is true if the group in question has an infinite abelian subgroup (Theorem C) or if it is finitely generated and has an infinite proper subgroup (Theorem D).