A remark about central automorphisms of groups. (Q2504990)

An automorphism \(\alpha\) of a group \(G\) is called a central automorphism if it acts trivially on \(G/Z(G)\), where \(Z(G)\) is the centre of \(G\). Let \(\Gamma\) denote the group of central automorphisms of \(G\). In this paper the author proves the following result: Let \(Z\) be a central subgroup of finite exponent, \(n\), of the group \(G\) and suppose that \(G\) has no nontrivial direct factor contained in \(Z\). Then (i) \(\Gamma\) has finite exponent dividing \(n\); (ii) If \(k\) is the least positive integer such that \(n\) is not divisible by the \((k+1)\)-st power of any prime then \([Z,{_{2k-1}\Gamma}]=1\); (iii) \(\Gamma\) is nilpotent of class at most \(2k-1\), with \(k\) defined as in (ii). -- The author gives examples to show that the bounds \(2k-1\) are actually attained in parts (ii) and (iii).