Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Various characteristic conjugacy classes of subgroups having covering/avoidance properties with respect to chief factors have recently played a major role in the study of finite soluble groups. Apart from the subgroups which are now called Hall subgroups, P. Hall [7] also considered the system normalizers of a finite soluble group and showed that these form a characteristic conjugacy class, cover the central chief factors and avoid the rest. The system normalizers were later shown by Carter and Hawkes [1] to be the simplest example of a wealth of characteristic conjugacy classes of subgroups of finite soluble groups which arise naturally as a consequence of the theory of formations.