On finite alperin p-groups with homocyclic commutator subgroup

We study metabelian Alperin groups, i.e., metabelian groups in which every 2-generated subgroup has a cyclic commutator subgroup. It is known that, if the minimum number d(G) of generators of a finite Alperin p-group G is n ≥ 3, then d(G′) ≤ Cn2 for p≠ 3 and d(G′) ≤ Cn2 + Cn3 for p = 3. The first section of the paper deals with finite Alperin p-groups G with p≠ 3 and d(G) = n ≥ 3 that have a homocyclic commutator subgroup of rank Cn2. In addition, a corollary is deduced for infinite Alperin p-groups. In the second section, we prove that, if G is a finite Alperin 3-group with homocyclic commutator subgroup G- of rank Cn2 + Cn3, then G″ is an elementary abelian group.