This article gives the statement, and possibly proof, of a result according to which any Maximal subgroup (?) of a group satisfies exactly one of the following two subgroup properties: Normal subgroup (?) and Abnormal subgroup (?)
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Statement
Any maximal subgroup of a group is either normal or abnormal.
Related facts
Weaker facts
Definitions used
Maximal subgroup
Further information: Maximal subgroup
A proper subgroup
of a group
is termed a maximal subgroup if there is no proper subgroup of
properly containing
. In other words, if
is a subgroup of
such that
, then
or
.
Normal subgroup
Further information: Normal subgroup
A subgroup
of a group
is termed normal in
if it satisfies the following equivalent conditions:
- For any
, the subgroup
is equal to
.
- The normalizer of
in
equals
.
Abnormal subgroup
Further information: Abnormal subgroup
A subgroup
of a group
is termed abnormal in
if, for any
,
where
.
Proof
Given: A group
, a maximal subgroup
of
.
To prove:
is either normal or abnormal in
.
Proof: Let
be the normalizer of
in
. Then,
. Thus, either
, or
. In the former case,
is normal in
.
In the latter case,
. Now, pick any
. Consider the subgroup
. There are three cases:
is not contained in
: By maximality of
,
, so
.
: Thus,
, and since
, we get
. Thus,
.
is a proper subgroup of
:
is a proper subgroup of
, forcing
, which would imply that
, a contradiction.