In mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

, in the field of group theory

Group theory

In mathematics and abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as groups.The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as rings, fields, and vector spaces can all be seen as groups endowed with additional operations and...

, the perfect core (or perfect radical) of a group

Group (mathematics)

In mathematics, a group is an algebraic structure consisting of a set together with an operation that combines any two of its elements to form a third element. To qualify as a group, the set and the operation must satisfy a few conditions called group axioms, namely closure, associativity, identity...

 is its largest perfect

Perfect group

In mathematics, more specifically in the area of modern algebra known as group theory, a group is said to be perfect if it equals its own commutator subgroup, or equivalently, if the group has no nontrivial abelian quotients...

 subgroup

Subgroup

In group theory, given a group G under a binary operation *, a subset H of G is called a subgroup of G if H also forms a group under the operation *. More precisely, H is a subgroup of G if the restriction of * to H x H is a group operation on H...

. Its existence is guaranteed by the fact that the subgroup generated

Generating set of a group

In abstract algebra, a generating set of a group is a subset that is not contained in any proper subgroup of the group. Equivalently, a generating set of a group is a subset such that every element of the group can be expressed as the combination of finitely many elements of the subset and their...

 by a family of perfect subgroups is again a perfect subgroup. The perfect core is also the point where the transfinite derived series stabilizes for any group.

A group whose perfect core is trivial is termed a hypoabelian group. Every solvable group

Solvable group

In mathematics, more specifically in the field of group theory, a solvable group is a group that can be constructed from abelian groups using extensions...

 is hypoabelian, and so is every free group

Free group

In mathematics, a group G is called free if there is a subset S of G such that any element of G can be written in one and only one way as a product of finitely many elements of S and their inverses...

.

The quotient

Quotient group

In mathematics, specifically group theory, a quotient group is a group obtained by identifying together elements of a larger group using an equivalence relation...

of a group G by its perfect core is hypoabelian, and is called the hypoabelianization of G.