Enumeration of lifts of commuting elements of a group. (Q619026)

Given commuting elements \(a,b\) of a group \(G\) and a group epimorphism \(q\colon G'\to G\) with finite kernel, the set of commuting lifts of \(a,b\) to \(G'\) is finite (possibly, empty). The second named author obtained a formula for the number of such lifts in terms of representations of \(\text{Ker\,}q\). The authors apply this formula to several group epimorphisms \(q\) with the same kernel. In particular, the case where \(\text{Ker\,}q=Q_8\) is the quaternion group is analyzed. In this case it turns out that the number in question is equal to 0, 8 16, 24, 40 (Theorem 1) and it appears that all these numbers are realized for some \(G\), \(G'\), \(q\), \(a\), \(b\). Besides the quaternion group case, the authors consider results for the symmetric group on three symbols, the dihedral group of order 8, the alternating group on four symbols and the extraspecial 2-groups, as far as their Theorem 1 is concerned.