Strong double coverings of groups

Abstract

By a covering of a group G we mean an epimorphism from a group F to G. Introducing the notion of strong covering as a covering pi:F-->G such that every automorphism of G is a projection via pi of an automorphism of F, the main aim of this paper is to characterise double coverings which are strong. This is done in details for metacyclic groups, rotary platonic groups and some finite simple groups.