Abstract:
One of the important problems in group theory is the study of groups G=AB which are products of two subgroups A and B. The following question is in the focus of interest: How do the structure and the embedding of the factors A and B influence the structure of the group G and vice versa?
This thesis contributes to the answers of this question for (finite) mutually permutable products G=AB; A and B are called mutually permutable if A permutes with every subgroup of B and B permutes with every subgroup of A. We study mutually permutable products within the framework of classes of groups (Fitting classes, Fitting formations and saturated formations) and with regard to general structural properties.
First we investigate the (sub)normality of certain subgroups of mutually permutable factors. In addition, we discuss how closely related mutually permutable products are to normal products; a main result in this context is that the nilpotent residual of B normalizes A (if A and B are mutually permutable). Furthermore, we present some properties of mutually permutable products G=AB with a core-free intersection of the factors A and B. These results play an important role in proofs using induction arguments.
The study of mutually permutable products G=AB in the context of group classes starts with Fitting classes and the corresponding radicals. Surprisingly, it turns out that the radicals of the factors A and B themselves are mutually permutable. Moreover, their connection to the radical of G answers the question how containment of A and B in a Fitting class is inherited by G=AB and vice versa.
This motivates the discussion of the (mutual) permutability of the dual type of subgroups, namely the residuals of the factors A and B associated to formations. We show that for an arbitrary formation, the residuals do not permute in general, but they do permute (among others) for Fitting formations and saturated formations. Therefore, we take a closer look at the connection between the residuals of A, B and G=AB for these types of formations. In the case of Fitting formations, the behavior of the residuals turns out to be very symmetric to the behavior of the corresponding radicals. In the case of saturated formations, we obtain remarkable results in particular for products G=AB with a core-free intersection of A and B, which has several consequences also to arbitrary mutually permutable products concerning their containment in different classes of groups.