A right Engel sink of an element g of a group G is a set ${\mathscr R}(g)$ such that for every x ∈ G all sufficiently long commutators $[...[[g,x],x],\dots ,x]$ belong to ${\mathscr R}(g)$. (Thus, g is a right Engel element precisely when we can choose ${\mathscr R}(g)=\{ 1\}$.) It is proved that if every element of a compact (Hausdorff) group G has a countable right Engel sink, then G has a finite normal subgroup N such that G/N is locally nilpotent.

We consider the graph $\Gamma _{\text {virt}}(G)$ whose vertices are the elements of a finitely generated profinite group G and where two vertices x and y are adjacent if and only if they topologically generate an open subgroup of G. We investigate the connectivity of the graph $\Delta _{\text {virt}}(G)$ obtained from $\Gamma _{\text {virt}}(G)$ by removing its isolated vertices. In particular, we prove that for every positive integer t, there exists a finitely generated prosoluble group G with the property that $\Delta _{\operatorname {\mathrm {virt}}}(G)$ has precisely t connected components. Moreover, we study the graph $\widetilde \Gamma _{\operatorname {\mathrm {virt}}}(G)$ , whose vertices are again the elements of G and where two vertices are adjacent if and only if there exists a minimal generating set of G containing them. In this case, we prove that the subgraph $\widetilde \Delta _{\operatorname {\mathrm {virt}}}(G)$ obtained removing the isolated vertices is connected and has diameter at most 3.

A group G has restricted centralizers if for each g in G the centralizer $C_G(g)$ either is finite or has finite index in G. A theorem of Shalev states that a profinite group with restricted centralizers is abelian-by-finite. In the present paper we handle profinite groups with restricted centralizers of word-values. We show that if w is a multilinear commutator word and G a profinite group with restricted centralizers of w-values, then the verbal subgroup w(G) is abelian-by-finite.

We discuss some questions related to the generation of supersoluble groups. First we prove that the number of elements needed to generate a finite supersoluble group G with good probability can be quite a lot larger than the smallest cardinality d(G) of a generating set of G. Indeed, if G is the free prosupersoluble group of rank d ⩾ 2 and dP(G) is the minimum integer k such that the probability of generating G with k elements is positive, then dP(G) = 2d + 1. In contrast to this, if k – d(G) ⩾ 3, then the distribution of the first component in a k-tuple chosen uniformly in the set of all the k-tuples generating G is not too far from the uniform distribution.

Let $S$ be a finitely generated pro-$p$ group. Let ${\mathcal{E}}_{p^{\prime }}(S)$ be the class of profinite groups $G$ that have $S$ as a Sylow subgroup, and such that $S$ intersects nontrivially with every nontrivial normal subgroup of $G$. In this paper, we investigate whether or not there is a bound on $|G:S|$ for $G\in {\mathcal{E}}_{p^{\prime }}(S)$. For instance, we give an example where ${\mathcal{E}}_{p^{\prime }}(S)$ contains an infinite ascending chain of soluble groups, and on the other hand show that $|G:S|$ is bounded in the case where $S$ is just infinite.

Let $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}w$ be a multilinear commutator word, that is, a commutator of weight $n$ in $n$ different group variables. It is proved that if $G$ is a profinite group in which all pronilpotent subgroups generated by $w$-values are periodic, then the verbal subgroup $w(G)$ is locally finite.

We show that if G is a finitely generated profinite group such that [x1, x2, …, xk] is Engel for any x1, x2, …, xk ∈ G, then γ(G) is locally nilpotent, and if [x1, x2, …, xk] has finite order for any x1, x2, …, xk ∈ G then, under some additional assumptions, γk(G) is locally finite.