Paper 2, Section II, F

Groups, Rings and Modules
Part IB, 2009

Define the centre of a group, and prove that a group of prime-power order has a nontrivial centre. Show also that if the quotient group G/Z(G)G / Z(G) is cyclic, where Z(G)Z(G) is the centre of GG, then it is trivial. Deduce that a non-abelian group of order p3p^{3}, where pp is prime, has centre of order pp.

Let FF be the field of pp elements, and let GG be the group of 3×33 \times 3 matrices over FF of the form

(1ab01c001)\left(\begin{array}{lll} 1 & a & b \\ 0 & 1 & c \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \end{array}\right)

Identify the centre of GG.