It is proved that for any prime $p$ a finitely generated nilpotent group is conjugacy separable in the class of finite $p$-groups if and only if the torsion subgroup of it is a finite $p$-group and the quotient group by the torsion subgroup is abelian.
The congruence subgroup problem for a finitely generated group $Gamma$ and $Gleq Aut(Gamma)$ asks whether the map $hat{G}to Aut(hat{Gamma})$ is injective, or more generally, what is its kernel $Cleft(G,Gammaright)$? Here $hat{X}$ denotes the profinite completion of $X$. In the case $G=Aut(Gamma)$ we denote $Cleft(Gammaright)=Cleft(Aut(Gamma),Gammaright)$. Let $Gamma$ be a finitely generated group, $bar{Gamma}=Gamma/[Gamma,Gamma]$, and $Gamma^{*}=bar{Gamma}/tor(bar{Gamma})congmathbb{Z}^{(d)}$. Denote $Aut^{*}(Gamma)=textrm{Im}(Aut(Gamma)to Aut(Gamma^{*}))leq GL_{d}(mathbb{Z})$. In this paper we show that when $Gamma$ is nilpotent, there is a canonical isomorphism $Cleft(Gammaright)simeq C(Aut^{*}(Gamma),Gamma^{*})$. In other words, $Cleft(Gammaright)$ is completely determined by the solution to the classical congruence subgroup problem for the arithmetic group $Aut^{*}(Gamma)$. In particular, in the case where $Gamma=Psi_{n,c}$ is a finitely generated free nilpotent group of class $c$ on $n$ elements, we get that $C(Psi_{n,c})=C(mathbb{Z}^{(n)})={e}$ whenever $ngeq3$, and $C(Psi_{2,c})=C(mathbb{Z}^{(2)})=hat{F}_{omega}$ = the free profinite group on countable number of generators.
A famous result of Hall asserts that the multiplication and exponentiation in finitely generated torsion free nilpotent groups can be described by rational polynomials. We describe an algorithm to determine such polynomials for all torsion free nilpotent groups of given Hirsch length. We apply this to determine the Hall polynomials for all such groups of Hirsch length at most 7.
Let $p$ be a prime and let $P$ be a Sylow $p$-subgroup of a finite nonabelian group $G$. Let $bcl(G)$ be the size of the largest conjugacy class of the group $G$. We show that $|P/O_p(G)| < bcl(G)$ if $G$ is not abelian.
It is proved that, for a prime $p>2$ and integer $ngeq 1$, finite $p$-groups of nilpotency class $3$ and having only two conjugacy class sizes $1$ and $p^n$ exist if and only if $n$ is even; moreover, for a given even positive integer, such a group is unique up to isoclinism (in the sense of Philip Hall).
Let $G$ be a finite group and $Irr(G)$ the set of irreducible complex characters of $G$. Let $e_p(G)$ be the largest integer such that $p^{e_p(G)}$ divides $chi(1)$ for some $chi in Irr(G)$. We show that $|G:mathbf{F}(G)|_p leq p^{k e_p(G)}$ for a constant $k$. This settles a conjecture of A. Moreto. We also study the related problems of the $p$-parts of conjugacy class sizes of finite groups.