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Metabelian group
From Groupprops
This article defines a group property: a property that can be evaluated to true/false for any given group
View a complete list of group properties
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Contents |
History
Origin
The concept and term metabelian group was introduced by Furtwangler in 1930.
The term metabelian was earlier used for groups of nilpotence class 2, but is no longer used in that sense.
Definition
Symbol-free definition
A group is said to be metabelian if it satisfies the following equivalent conditions:
- It is solvable of solvable length 2.
- Its commutator subgroup is Abelian.
- There is a normal Abelian subgroup such that the quotient is also Abelian.
In terms of the meta operator
This property is obtained by applying the meta operator to the property: Abelian group
View all properties obtained by applying the meta operator
The property of being metabelian arises by applying the meta operator to the group property of being Abelian. Equivalently metabelian can be described as Abelian-by-Abelian, where by denotes the group extension operator.
Relation with other properties
Stronger properties
Weaker properties
Metaproperties
Subgroups
This group property is subgroup-closed, viz any subgroup of a group satisfying the property also satisfies the property
View other subgroup-closed group properties
Any subgroup of a metabelian group is metabelian. This follows from the general fact that the derived series of the subgroup is contained (entry-wise) in the derived series of the whole group.
Quotients
This group property is quotient-closed, viz any quotient of a group satisfying the property also has the property
View other quotient-closed group properties
Any quotient of a metabelian group is metabelian. This follows from the fact that the derived series of the quotient is the quotient of the derived series of the original group.
Direct products
This group property is direct product-closed, viz the direct product of an arbitrary (possibly infinite) family of groups each having the property, also has the property
View other direct product-closed group properties
A direct product of metabelian groups is metabelian. This follows from the fact that the derived series of the direct product is the direct product of the respective derived series.

