polycyclic group

In mathematics, a polycyclic group is a solvable group that satisfies the maximal condition on subgroups (that is, every subgroup is finitely generated). Polycyclic groups are finitely presented, which makes them interesting from a computational point of view. Terminology Equivalently, a group G is polycyclic if and only if it admits a subnormal series with cyclic factors, that is a finite set of subgroups, let's say G0, ..., Gn such that Gn coincides with G G0 is the trivial subgroup Gi is a normal subgroup of Gi+1 (for every i between 0 and n - 1) and the quotient group Gi+1 / Gi is a cyclic group (for every i between 0 and n - 1) A metacyclic group is a polycyclic group with n ≤ 2, or in other words an extension of a cyclic group by a cyclic group. Examples Examples of polycyclic groups include finitely generated abelian groups, finitely generated nilpotent groups, and finite solvable groups. Anatoly Maltsev proved that solvable subgroups of the integer general linear group are polycyclic; and later Louis Auslander (1967) and Swan proved the converse, that any polycyclic group is up to isomorphism a group of integer matrices. The holomorph of a polycyclic group is also such a group of integer matrices.