A note on commuting automorphisms of some finite $p$-groups

Abstract

An automorphism $\alpha$ of a group $G$ is called a commuting automorphism if each element $x$ in $G$ commutes with its image $\alpha(x)$ under $\alpha$. Let $A(G)$ denote the set of all commuting automorphisms of $G$. Rai [Proc. Japan Acad., Ser. A {\bf 91} (2015), no. 5, 57-60] has given some sufficient conditions on a finite $p$-group $G$ such that $A(G)$ is a subgroup of Aut$(G)$ and, as a consequence, has proved that in a finite $p$-group $G$ of co-class 2, where $p$ is an odd prime, $A(G)$ is a subgroup of Aut$(G)$. We give here very elementary and short proofs of main results of Rai.