Abnormal subgroups and Carter subgroups in some classes of infinite groups. (Q2491813)

A subgroup \(X\) of a group \(G\) is said to be `abnormal' if \(g\) belongs to \(\langle X,X^g\rangle\) for each \(g\in G\). Of course, abnormal subgroups are self-normalizing and it is well known that a finite group is nilpotent if and only if it has no proper abnormal subgroups. In the infinite case, it is known that in locally nilpotent groups there are no proper abnormal subgroups, but whether the converse statement holds seems to be an open question. A subgroup \(X\) of a finite group \(G\) is called a `Carter subgroup' if \(X\) is nilpotent and \(N_G(X)=X\). In finite soluble groups Carter subgroups exist and are conjugate, so that they are abnormal. In the paper under review, Carter subgroups of an arbitrary (generalized) soluble group \(G\) are defined as the locally nilpotent abnormal subgroups of \(G\). As a consequence of results which characterize certain (generalized) soluble groups satisfying the minimal condition on abnormal subgroups, the authors prove that a periodic nilpotent-by-hypercentral group with the minimal condition on abnormal subgroups has a unique conjugacy class of Carter subgroups. A similar result is also obtained if the periodicity assumption is replaced by the requirement that the group is FC-nilpotent.