Large norms in group theory

Abstract

In 1935, the introduction of the norm of a group by Reinhold Baer is a turning point in group theory. In fact, Baer proved that there is a very strong relationship between the structure of the norm and that of the whole group (see [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]). Since then, the norm has been playing a very significant roles in many aspects of group theory and its applications: it has been used in [43] to describe the connection between Hopf–Galois structures and skew braces; it has been used in [23] to describe some special types of profinite groups; and it has been fundamental in the theory of subgroup lattices of groups (see [40]).In this paper, we weaken the original definition of norm by taking into account only those subgroups that are “large” in some sense. Depending on the chosen concept of largeness, the resulting norm can have an impact on the structure of the whole group that is even greater than that of Baer's norm. This is exactly what happens with the non-polycyclic norm, and in fact, Theorem 4.17 gives a precise description of generalized soluble groups in which the non-polycyclic norm is non-Dedekind (and can be considered as the main result of the paper). Other times, the resulting norms have their own peculiar behaviour; this is the case if “large” means “infinite”, “having infinite rank”, “being non-Černikov”, or “having cardinality m” for some given uncountable cardinal number m.