Groups that have a partition by commuting subsets (Q831205)

This paper investigates problems related to groups with abelian partitions. Let \(G\) be a finite group. Then the group \(G\) has an abelian partition (AP-group) if there exists a partition of \(G\) into commuting subsets \(A_1,A_2,\dots,A_n\) of \(G\) such that \( |A_i| \ge 2\) for each \(i=1,2,\dots,n.\) If \(G\) is not AP-group, we say \(G\) is an NAP-group. One way to study the properties of a group is to associate a graph with the group and use the properties of the graph to understand the group. For a subset \(X\) of \(G\), the commuting graph on the set \(X\) is defined as the graph which has \(X\) as its vertex set and for \(g,h \in X\) (distinct), \(g\) and \(h\) is joined by edge iff \(gh=hg.\) For \(X=G,\) the commuting graph is denoted by \(\Delta(G).\) AP-groups were first introduced by \textit{A. Mahmoudifar} and \textit{A. R. Moghaddamfar} [Commun. Algebra 45, No. 7, 3159--3165 (2017; Zbl 1368.05069)], where the authors classified AP-groups that have abelian partition for \(n=2,3.\) They introduced the concept of commuting graph while classification. Later many mathematician such as M.Akbari, A.R. Moghaddamfar, S. Dolfi, M. Herzong, E. Jabara closely studied the relationship between AP-group and commuting graph. Also it has been observed that the dihedral groups of order \(2n,\) for \(n\ge 3\) odd, are NAP-groups and that certain direct product of dihedral groups are NAP-groups. In this paper, the authors show that the class of AP-groups and class of NAP-groups are ``large'' in the sense that every finite group is isomorphic to a subgroup of a group with an abelian partition and also isomorphic to a group with no abelian partition. They also find the bounds for the minimum number of partitions for several families of groups which admit an abelian partition. Finally, they examine how the size of a partition with the minimum number of parts behaves with respect to the direct product. Their study forces us to think about the complete classification of AP-groups, which remains mystery. Also this study leave a natural question which is: are there any NAP-group that are simple?