Odd order groups with an automorphism cubing many elements

Abstract

AbstractWe determine the structure of a nonabelian group G of odd order such that some automorphism of G sends exactly (1/p)|G| elements to their cubes, where p is the smallest prime dividing |G|. These groups are close to being abelian in the sense that they either have nilpotency class 2 or have an abelian subgroup of index p.