Nilpotency in automorphic loops of prime power order

A loop is automorphic if its inner mappings are automorphisms. Using so-called associated operations, we show that every commutative automorphic loop of odd prime power order is centrally nilpotent. Starting with anisotropic planes in the vector space of $2\times 2$ matrices over the field of prime order $p$, we construct a family of automorphic loops of order $p^3$ with trivial center.