Theorem. the internal semidirect-product theorem [fgap-000I]

Let \(N,H\leq G\). Suppose \(N\) is normal in \(G\) and \(N,H\) are complementary. Conjugation defines an action \[ \alpha :H\longrightarrow \operatorname {Aut}(N),\qquad \alpha (h)(n)=hnh^{-1}. \] Give \(N\times H\) the multiplication \[ (n_1,h_1)(n_2,h_2) =\bigl (n_1\alpha (h_1)(n_2),h_1h_2\bigr ). \] The resulting external semidirect product is denoted \(N\rtimes _{\alpha }H\). Multiplication induces an isomorphism \[ N\rtimes _{\alpha }H\xrightarrow {\ \cong \ }G, \qquad (n,h)\longmapsto nh. \]

Conversely, the canonical copies of \(N\) and \(H\) in \(N\rtimes _{\alpha }H\) are complementary, and the copy of \(N\) is normal. The external multiplication and its split exact sequence are developed in [isaev2018theory, sec. 1.4.2, pp. 58--61]; compare [fre2023discrete, sec. 4.2.13, pp. 62--63]. An arbitrary extension by a normal subgroup need not split: the complement is extra structure.