A Classification Of n-Abelian Groups

The concept of an abelian group is central to group theory. For that reason many generalizations have been considered and exploited. One, in particular, is the idea of an n-abelian group (6). If n is an integer and n > 1, then a group G is n-abelian if, and only if, (xy)n = xnyn for all elements x and y of G. Thus, a group is 2-abelian if, and only if, it is abelian, while non-abelian n-abelian groups do exist for every n > 2. Many results pertaining to the way in which groups can be constructed from abelian groups can be generalized to theorems on n-abelian groups (1; 2). Moreover, the case of n = p, a prime, is useful in the study of finite p-groups (3; 4; 5). Moreover, a recent result of Weichsel (9) gives a description of all p-abelian finite p-groups.