On boundedly generated subgroups of profinite groups. (Q402417)

In some recent papers E. Detomi, M. Morigi, P. Shumyatsky and the reviewer proved that some properties of a finite group can be detected by looking at subgroups generated with few elements. The author investigates whether these results can be extended from finite to profinite groups. For example she proves that a profinite group \(G\) contains a 3-generated closed subgroup whose prime graph coincides with the prime graph of \(G\). Other results in the paper show that if \(C\) is a closed subgroup of a profinite group \(G\), then it is possible to get information on the set of prime divisors of \(|G:C|\) from the primes that divide \(|H:C\cap H|\), where \(H\) is an appropriate 2-generated subgroup of \(G\). A more intriguing question is the following: is there a constant \(d\) such that every profinite group \(G\) contains a \(d\)-generated (closed) subgroup \(H\) such that \(H\) and \(G\) have the same exponent? If \(G\) is finite then this problem has a positive solution, with \(d\leq 3\). The general question for profinite groups is more difficult, and it is related to the following well-known open problem: does every torsion profinite group have finite exponent? A positive solution is obtained under the additional hypotheses that \(G\) is prosupersolvable and finitely generated: in this case it this proved that \(G\) contains a 2-generated subgroup with the same exponent.