On minimal irregular p-Groups

Abstract

The study of minimal irregular p-groups was initiated by Mann [9]. He defines such a group to be a finite irregular p-group in which every proper section is regular. He then deduces a large number of properties of such groups and shows, by construction, that there is no bound on their exponent. In this note methods involving varieties of groups are used to show that all minimal irregular p-groups can be ‘built up’ from cyclic groups, groups of exponent p and a relatively small class of metabelian minimal irregular p-groups. To phrase this more precisely, say that a group P is derivable from a family of groups {Qi} if P is a homomorphic image of a subdirect product of the Qi. Then we will prove as Theorem 2.2: a minimal irregular p-group of exponent pn and nilpotency class c is derivable from a family of three groups: i) a cyclic group of order pn, ii) a 2-generator monolithic group of exponent p and class c, iii) a minimal irregular p-group whi h is metabelian, has class p and has exponent p2.