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Free groups and automorphism groups of infinite fields

Let λbe a cardinal with λ=λ^{\aleph_0} and p be either 0 or a prime number. We show that there are fields K_0 and K_1 of cardinality λand characteristic p such that the automorphism group of K_0 is a free group of cardinality 2^λand the automorphism group of K_1 is a free abelian group of cardinality 2^λ. This partially answers a question from [8] and complements results from [15], [16] and [17]. The methods developed in the proof of the above statement also allow us to show that the above cardinal arithmetic assumption is consistently not necessary for the existence of such fields and that the existence of a cardinal λof uncountable cofinality with the property that there is no field of cardinality λwhose automorphism group is a free group of cardinality greater than λimplies the existence of large cardinals in certain inner models of set theory.