The groups of order 128 (Q5899695)

This is a great success of computational group theory: the machine computation of descriptions of the 2328 groups of order 128 and an independent computation of the 115 isoclinism families of these groups. This work confirms earlier corrections to hand and machine computations of 1975 by \textit{E. Rodemich} [J. Algebra 67, 129-142 (1980; Zbl 0449.20037)]; it extends the famous Hall-Senior catalogue [\textit{M. Hall} jun. and \textit{J. K. Senior}; The groups of order \(2^ n\) (\(n\leq 6\)) (Macmillan, 1964; Zbl 0192.11701)] of groups of order dividing 64. One has access to the descriptions of the groups and their automorphism groups via a library TWOGPS for use with the CAYLEY system [\textit{M. F. Newman}, \textit{E. A. O'Brien} in: Group Theory, Proc. Conf., Singapore 1987, 437-442 (1989; Zbl 0662.20002)] and via a microfiche available from the authors. There is also an experimental database written in VAX PASCAL for use in conjunction with the TWOGPS library. The information stored for each group is the following: order, number of generators, the number of elements of each order, parent, central quotient, centre, commutator subgroup, nilpotency class, conjugacy class number and class structure, automorphism group order, isoclinism family number. Algorithms and data are also being implemented into other computer algebra systems, e.g. GAP [\textit{A. Niemeyer}, \textit{W. Nickel}, \textit{M. Schönert}, GAP. Getting started and reference manual, 1988. Available from Lehrstuhl D für Mathematik, RWTH Aachen, 5100 Aachen, FRG]. This computation and a similar one for the 56092 groups of order 256 [\textit{E. A. O'Brien}, Ph. D. thesis, Aust. Natl. Univ., Canberra (1988); J. Algebra (to appear)] has been made possible mainly by the development and general implementation of the p-group generation algorithm [\textit{M. F. Newman}, in: Group Theory, Canberra 1975, Lect. Notes Math. 573, 73-84 (1977; Zbl 0519.20018), and \textit{E. A. O'Brien}, J. Symb. Comput. 9, No. 5/6, 677-698 (1990; Zbl 0736.20001)]; it calculates consistent power-commutator presentations for a complete list of immediate descendants of a finite p- group G; redundancies (isomorphic groups) are removed by calculating representatives of orbits on allowable subgroups of the p-multiplicator of G under the action of the automorphisms of G when extended to a p- covering group. The computation of the isoclinism families is done in an analogous manner using in addition D. F. Holt's Schur multiplier algorithm.