Squares of real conjugacy classes in finite groups

Abstract

We prove that if a finite group $G$ contains a conjugacy class $K$ whose square is of the form $1 \cup D$, where $D$ is a conjugacy class of $G$, then $\langle K \rangle$ is a solvable proper normal subgroup of $G$ and we completely determine its structure. We also obtain the structure of those groups in which the assumption above is true for all non-central conjugacy classes and when every conjugacy class satisfies that its square is the union of all central conjugacy classes except at most one.