Groups with few non-nilpotent subgroups

Abstract

Let G be a non-nilpotent group in which all proper subgroups are nilpotent. If G is finite then G is soluble [18], and a classification of such groups is given in [14]. The paper [12]. of Newman and Wiegold discusses infinite groups with this property. Clearly such a group is either finitely generated or locally nilpotent. Many interesting results concerning the finitely generated case are established in [12]. Since the publication of that paper there have appeared the examples due to Ol'shanskii and Rips (see [13]) of finitely generated infinite simple p-groups all of whose proper nontrivial subgroups have order p, a prime. Following [12], let us say that a group G is an AN-group if it is locally nilpotent and non-nilpotent with all proper subgroups nilpotent. A complete description is given in Section 4 of [12] of AN-groups having maximal subgroups. Every soluble AN-gvoup has locally cyclic derived factor group and is a p-group for some prime p ([12; Lemma 4.2]). The only further information provided in [12] on AN-groups without maximal subgroups is that they are countable. Four years or so after the publication of [12], there appeared the examples of Heineken and Mohamed [5]: for every prime p there exists a metabelian, non-nilpotent p-group G having all proper subgroups nilpotent and subnormal; further, G has no maximal subgroups and so G/G' is a Prüfer p-group in each case.