Isoclinism of groups

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In mathematics, specifically group theory, isoclinism is an equivalence relation on groups which generalizes isomorphism. The concept of isoclinism was introduced by Hall (1940) to help classify and understand p-groups, although applicable to all groups. Isoclinism remains an important part of the study of p-groups, and for instance §29 of Berkovich (2008) and §21.2 of Blackburn, Neumann & Venkataraman (2007) are devoted to it. Isoclinism also has vital consequences for the Schur multiplier and the associated aspects of character theory, as described in Suzuki (1982, p. 256) and Conway et al. (1985, p. xxiii, Ch. 6.7).

Definition

According to Struik (1960), two groups G1 and G2 are isoclinic if the following three conditions hold:

  1. G_{1}/Z_{1} is isomorphic to G_{2}/Z_{2}, where Z_{1} is the center of G_{1} and Z_{2} is the center of G_{2}.
  2. The commutator subgroup of G_{1} is isomorphic to the commutator subgroup of G_{2}.
  3. "The isomorphisms of (1) and (2) can be selected in such a way that whenever a_{1}Z_{1} and b_{1}Z_{1} correspond respectively to a_{2}Z_{2} and b_{2}Z_{2} under (1), then a_{1}b_{1}a_{1}^{{-1}}b_{1}^{{-1}} corresponds to a_{2}b_{2}a_{2}^{{-1}}b_{2}^{{-1}} under (2)."

Examples

All Abelian groups are isoclinic since they are equal to their centers and their commutator subgroups are always the identity subgroup. Indeed, a group is isoclinic to an abelian group if and only if it is itself abelian, and G is isoclinic with G×A if and only if A is abelian. The dihedral, quasidihedral, and quaternion groups of order 2n are isoclinic for n≥3, Berkovich (2008, p. 285).

Isoclinism divides p-groups into families, and the smallest members of each family are called stem groups. A group is a stem group if and only if Z(G) ≤ [G,G], that is, if and only if every element of the center of the group is contained in the derived subgroup (also called the commutator subgroup), Berkovich (2008, p. 287). Some enumeration results on isoclinism families are given in Blackburn, Neumann & Venkataraman (2007, p. 226).

Another textbook treatment of isoclinism is given in Suzuki (1986, pp. 92–95), which describes in more detail the isomorphisms induced by an isoclinism. Isoclinism is important in theory of projective representations of finite groups, as all Schur covering groups of a group are isoclinic, a fact already hinted at by Hall according to Suzuki (1982, p. 256). This is important in describing the character tables of the finite simple groups, and so is described in some detail in Conway et al. (1985, p. xxiii, Ch. 6.7).

References

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