Soluble products of connected subgroups. (Q951984)

Let \(\mathcal L\) be a non-empty class of groups. Subgroups \(A\) and \(B\) of a group \(G\) are \(\mathcal L\)-connected if \(\langle a,b\rangle\in\mathcal L\) for all \(a\in A\) and \(b\in B\). A group \(G=AB\) is an \(\mathcal L\)-connected product of \(A\) and \(B\) if \(A\) and \(B\) are \(\mathcal L\)-connected. In the paper is considered mainly the case \(\mathcal L=\mathcal N^2\), the class of finite metanilpotent groups. It is obvious that \(G=AB\) is an \(\mathcal N^2\)-connected product of \(A\) and \(B\) if \(G/F(G)\) is an \(\mathcal N\)-connected product of \(AF(G)/F(G)\) and \(BF(G)/F(G)\), where \(F(G)\) denotes the Fitting subgroup of \(G\). The main theorem of the paper says that for soluble groups the converse holds, too. The authors prove that for a finite group \(G=AB\), which is the product of the soluble subgroups \(A\) and \(B\), if \(\langle a,b\rangle\) is a metanilpotent group for all \(a\in A\) and \(b\in B\), then the factor groups \(\langle a,b\rangle F(G)/F(G)\) are nilpotent. A particular generalization of this result and some consequences are also obtained. For instance, such a group \(G\) is proved to be soluble of nilpotent length at most \(l+1\), assuming that the factors \(A\) and \(B\) have nilpotent length at most \(l\). Also for any finite soluble group \(G\) and \(k\geq 1\), an element \(g\in G\) is contained in the preimage of the hypercenter of \(G/F_{k-1}(G)\), where \(F_{k-1}(G)\) denotes the \((k-1)\)-st term of the Fitting series of \(G\), if and only if the subgroups \(\langle g,h\rangle\) have nilpotent length at most \(k\) for all \(h\in G\).