Powerfully nilpotent groups of rank 2 or small order (Q778138)

Powerful \(p\)-groups were introduced by \textit{A. Lubotzky} and \textit{A. Mann} [J. Algebra 105, 484--505 (1987; Zbl 0626.20010)]. A powerful \(p\)-group \(G\) is powerfully nilpotent if \(G\) admits a powerful central chain, that is, a series of subgroups \(1=H_0 \leq H_1\leq \dots \leq H_n=G\) such that \([H_i,G]\leq H^p_{i-1}\) for every \(i\in \{1,2,\dots,n\}\). The powerful nilpotence class of \(G\) is the shortest length of a powerful central chain of \(G.\) If \(G\) is a powerfully nilpotent \(p\)-group of powerful class \(c\) and order \(p^n\), the powerful coclass of \(G\) is defined as the number \(n - c.\) A natural approach is to develop something that corresponds to a coclass theory for finite \(p\)-groups where coclass is replaced by powerful coclass. This lead to introduce, for a fixed prime \(p,\) the ancestry tree whose vertices are all the powerfully nilpotent \(p\)-groups and where two vertices \(G\) and \(H\) are joined by a directed edge from \(H\) to \(G\) if and only if \(H \cong G/Z(G)^p\) and \(G\) is not abelian. The authors give a full classification of powerfully nilpotent groups of rank \(2\) and deduce from this classification a precise formula for the number of powerfully nilpotent groups of rank 2 and order \(p^n.\) They also give a detailed analysis of the ancestry tree for these groups. Moreover, they give a full classification of powerfully nilpotent groups of order up to \(p^6.\)