The multiple holomorph of centerless groups

Abstract

Let $G$ be a group. The holomorph $\mathrm{Hol}(G)$ may be defined as the normalizer of the subgroup of either left or right translations in the group of all permutations of $G$. The multiple holomorph $\mathrm{NHol}(G)$ is in turn defined as the normalizer of the holomorph. Their quotient $T(G) = \mathrm{NHol}(G)/\mathrm{Hol}(G)$ has been computed for various families of groups $G$. In this paper, we consider the case when $G$ is centerless, and we show that $T(G)$ must have exponent at most $2$ unless $G$ satisfies some fairly strong conditions. As applications of our main theorem, we are able to show that $T(G)$ has order $2$ for all almost simple groups $G$, and that $T(G)$ has exponent at most $2$ for all centerless perfect or complete groups $G$.