Profinite groups with an automorphism of prime order whose fixed points have finite Engel sinks

Abstract

AbstractA right Engel sink of an element g of a group G is a set $${{\mathscr {R}}}(g)$$ R ( g ) such that for every $$x\in G$$ x ∈ G all sufficiently long commutators $$[...[[g,x],x],\dots ,x]$$ [ . . . [ [ g , x ] , x ] , ⋯ , x ] belong to $${\mathscr {R}}(g)$$ R ( g ) . (Thus, g is a right Engel element precisely when we can choose $${{\mathscr {R}}}(g)=\{ 1\}$$ R ( g ) = { 1 } .) We prove that if a profinite group G admits a coprime automorphism $$\varphi $$ φ of prime order such that every fixed point of $$\varphi $$ φ has a finite right Engel sink, then G has an open locally nilpotent subgroup. A left Engel sink of an element g of a group G is a set $${{\mathscr {E}}}(g)$$ E ( g ) such that for every $$x\in G$$ x ∈ G all sufficiently long commutators $$[...[[x,g],g],\dots ,g]$$ [ . . . [ [ x , g ] , g ] , ⋯ , g ] belong to $${{\mathscr {E}}}(g)$$ E ( g ) . (Thus, g is a left Engel element precisely when we can choose $${\mathscr {E}}(g)=\{ 1\}$$ E ( g ) = { 1 } .) We prove that if a profinite group G admits a coprime automorphism $$\varphi $$ φ of prime order such that every fixed point of $$\varphi $$ φ has a finite left Engel sink, then G has an open pronilpotent-by-nilpotent subgroup.