Irreducible Automorphisms of Certainp-Groups

Abstract

The chief purpose of this paper is to find all pairs (G, θ) whereGis a finite specialp-group, andθis an automorphism ofGacting trivially on the Frattini subgroup and irreducibly on the Frattini quotient. This problem arises in the context of describing finite groups having an abelian maximal subgroup. In fact, we solve a more general problem for a wider class ofp-groups, which we callspecial F-groups,whereFis a finite field of characteristicp.We point out that ifpis odd, then anF-group has exponentp.On the other hand, every special 2-group is also a specialGF(2)-group.