Groups whose subnormal subgroups have bounded defect (Q798765)

A subnormal subgroup H of a group G has defect 0 if \(H=G\) and defect n if H is a proper normal subgroup of a subgroup of G of defect n-1. Let \(D_ n\) denote the class of groups in which the subnormal subgroups have defect at most n. Then \(D_ 0\) is the class of simple groups; Gaschütz has shown that the finite solvable groups of \(D_ 1\) are metabelian (2- step); and McCaughan and Stonehewer-Casolo have shown that the finite solvable groups of \(D_ 2\) have derived length at most 5 and nilpotent length at most 4 (and these are best possible by Casolo's results). Here the author obtains the remarkable result that every finite solvable group is isomorphic with a subgroup of a finite solvable group of \(D_ 3\). The author constructs, using the twisted wreath product, a group \(R=R(p,q,m)\), where p and q are distinct primes and m is a natural number, with the properties: (i) \(R=KA\), where K is a normal extra- special p-group and A is an elementary abelian q-group; (ii) \(K=[K,A]\) and \([Z(K),A]=1\); (iii) R admits an automorphism \(\beta\) of order p such that \([R,\beta]=R\) and \([Z(R),\beta]=1\); (iv) R contains elementary abelian subgroups of orders \(p^ m\) and \(q^ m\), both avoiding Z(R). This is used to construct recursively, given a finite solvable group H with a chief series of length n and a prime p, a sequence of finite solvable groups \(G_ 1,G_ 2,...,G_ i\) such that \(G_ n\) has nilpotent length 2n, contains a subgroup \(\bar H\cong H\) with \(\bar H\cap Z(G_ n)=1\), and belongs to \(D_ 4\) if p is odd and \(D_ 3\) if \(p=2\). The author notes that he was unable to decide whether \(D_ 3\) contains odd order groups with arbitrarily large nilpotent length.