Products of subsets of groups by their inverses. (Q464792)

In the paper under review, a group \(G\) is called a \(\mathcal P\)-group (\(\mathcal P_k\)-group for some integer \(k>0\)) if each finite subset \(X\) of \(G\) (each subset \(X\) of size \(|X|\leq k\)) satisfies \(|XX^{-1}|=|X^{-1}X|\). The authors classify all \(\mathcal P\)-groups (in Theorem 7.4) as two infinite families: the abelian groups and Hamiltonian \(2\)-groups and of seven small finite groups. In particular it is shown in Theorem 9.1 that a non-periodic \(\mathcal P\)-group is abelian. It is easy to prove that any group is a \(\mathcal P_3\)-group. The authors characterize in Theorem 10.4 all \(\mathcal P_4\)-groups. The following question is left open: if there exists an integer \(m>0\) such that \(\mathcal P=\mathcal P_m\). It is shown that if such \(m\) exists then \(m\geq 6\). The authors finish their paper by proving that a group \(G\) is abelian if \(|AB|=|BA|\) for all finite abelian subsets \(A\) and \(B\) of \(G\).