Nilpotent by Supersolvable M-Groups

Abstract

A character of a finite group G is monomial if it is induced from a linear (degree one) character of a subgroup of G. A group G is an M-group if all its complex irreducible characters (the set Irr(G)) are monomial.In [1], Dade gave an example of an M-group with a normal subgroup which is itself not an M-group. In his group G, the supersolvable residual N is an extra special 2-group and G/N is supersolvable of even order. Moreover, the prime 2 is used in such a way that no analogous construction is possible in the case that |N| or |G:N| is odd. This led Isaacs in [8] and Dade in [2] to consider the effect of certain “oddness“ hypotheses in the study of monomial characters.Our main results are in the same spirit. Although our techniques seem to require a restrictive assumption on the supersolvable residual of the groups we consider, our theorems provide more evidence that under fairly general circumstances normal subgroups of M-groups should be M-groups.