Intersections of smooth polar unitals with secants are homeomorphic to spheres

In [5] and [6] we proved that (non-empty) sets of absolute points of smooth polarities, i.e. smooth polar unitals, in smooth projective planes of dimension 2l are smooth submanifolds of the point spaces homeomorphic to spheres of dimension . In this paper we show that the intersections of smooth polar unitals with secants are homeomorphic to spheres of dimension , respectively. Furthermore we prove that the condition of connectedness in [6, Theorem 1.2] may be omitted. This means that a closed (not necessarily connected) submanifold U of the point space of a smooth projective plane is homeomorphic to a sphere provided that there exists precisely one tangent at each point of U, and each secant intersects U transversally. If U has codimension 1 in the point space then the second condition follows from the first one, and also the intersections of U with secants are homeomorphic to spheres. This result may be generalized to compact hypersurfaces in the point spaces of smooth affine planes. Received: 1 July 2008     

Linear spaces with many projective planes

We assume that in a linear space there is a non-empty set M of points with the property that every plane containing a point of M is a projective plane. In section 3 an example is given that in general is not a projective space. But if M can be completed by two points to a generating set of P, then is a projective space.     

Homeomorphism classification of positively curved manifolds with almost maximal symmetry rank

We show that a closed simply connected 8-manifold (9-manifold) of positive sectional curvature on which a 3-torus (4-torus) acts isometrically is homeomorphic to a sphere, a complex projective space or a quaternionic projective plane (sphere). We show that a closed simply connected 2m-manifold (m5) of positive sectional curvature on which an (m–1)-torus acts isometrically is homeomorphic to a complex projective space if and only if its Euler characteristic is not 2. By [Wi], these results imply a homeomorphism classification for positively curved n-manifolds (n8) of almost maximal symmetry rank Supported by CNPq of Brazil, NSFC Grant 19741002, RFDP and Qiu-Shi Foundation of China.Supported partially by NSF Grant DMS 0203164 and a research grant from Capital normal university.     

Smooth projective translation planes

A projective plane is called smooth if both the point space and the line space are smooth manifolds such that the geometric operations are smooth. We prove that every smooth projective translation plane is isomorphic to one of the classical planes over , , or .Dedicated to Professor Dr. H. Salzmann on the occasion of his 65th birthday     

Self-dual sets of type (m, n) in projective spaces

In this paper we introduce and analyze the notion of self-dual k-sets of type (m, n). We show that in a non-square order projective space such sets exist only if the dimension is odd. We prove that, in a projective space of odd dimension and order q, self-dual k-sets of type (m, n), with , are of elliptic and hyperbolic type, respectively. As a corollary we obtain a new characterization of the non-singular elliptic and hyperbolic quadrics.     

Blocking Subspaces By Lines In PG(<Emphasis Type="Italic">n,q</Emphasis>)

This paper studies the cardinality of a smallest set of t-subspaces of the finite projective spaces PG(n, q) such that every s-subspace is incident with at least one element of , where 0 t < s n. This is a very difficult problem and the solution is known only for very few families of triples (s, t, n). When the answer is known, the corresponding blocking configurations usually are partitions of a subspace of PG(n, q) by subspaces of dimension t. One of the exceptions is the solution in the case t = 1 and n = 2s. In this paper, we solve the case when t = 1 and 2s < n 3s-3 and q is sufficiently large.     

Collineation groups irreducible on the components of a translation plane

We investigate finite translation planes of odd dimension over their kernels in which the translation complement induces on each component l a permutation group whose order is divisible by a p-primitive divisor. Using results of this investigation, we show that rank 3 affine planes of odd dimension over their kernels are either generalized André planes or semi-field planes. A similar result is given for translation planes having a collineation group which is doubly transitive on each affine line; besides the above two possibilities, there is a third possibility; the plane has order 27, the translation complement is doubly transitive on , and SL(2, 13) is contained in the translation complement.We also consider translation planes of odd dimension over their kernels which have a collineation group isomorphic to SL(2, w) with w prime to 5 and the characteristic, and having no affine perspectivity. We show that such planes have order 27, the prime power w=13, and the given group together with the translations forms a doubly transitive collineation group on {ie153-1}. This indicates quite strongly that the Hering translation plane of order 27 is unique with respect to the above properties.Both authors supported in part by NSF Grant No. MCS76-0661 A01.     

Killing spinors on K?hler manifolds

In the paper Kählerian Killing spinors are defined and their basic properties are investigated. Each Kähler manifold that admits a Kählerian Killing spinor is Einstein of odd complex dimension. Kählerian Killing spinors are a special kind of Kählerian twistor spinors. Real Kählerian Killing spinors appear for example, on closed Kähler manifolds with the smallest possible first eigenvalue of the Dirac operator. For the complex projective spaces P ^2l–1 and the complex hyperbolic spaces H ^2l–1 withl>1 the dimension of the space of Kählerian Killing spinors is equal to ( ). It is shown that in complex dimension 3 the complex hyperbolic space H ³ is the only simple connected complete spin Kähler manifold admitting an imaginary Kählerian Killing spinor.     

On flag-transitive affine planes of orderq 3

Let be a translation plane of orderq ³,q an odd prime power, whose kern GF(q). Letl be the line at infinity of . LetG be a solvable collineation group of in the linear translation complement, which acts transitively onl , and letH be a maximal normal cyclic subgroup ofG. Then the restriction ofH onl acts semiregularly onl and {1, 2, 3, 6}, where is the restriction ofG onl (ifq –1(mod 3), then {1, 2}). Ifq {3, 5} and {1, 2}, then is determined completely, using a computer.     

Ample vector bundles with zero loci of sectional genus two

Let X be a smooth complex projective variety and let be a smooth submanifold of dimension , which is the zero locus of a section of an ample vector bundle of rank on X. Let H be an ample line bundle on X, whose restriction H_Z to Z is generated by global sections. Triplets as above are classified under the assumption that is a polarized manifold of sectional genus 2. This can be regarded as a step towards the classification of ample vector bundles of corank one and curve genus two. Received: 6 June 2003     

Stability of Frobenius pull-backs of tangent bundles and generic injectivity of Gauss maps in positive characteristic

For a smooth projective variety X of dimension n in a projective space defined over an algebraically closed field k, the Gauss mapis a morphism from X to the Grassmannian of n-plans in sending to the embedded tangent space .The purpose of this paper is to prove the generic injectivity of Gauss mapsin positive characteristic for two cases; (1) weighted complete intersectionsof dimension of general type; (2) surfaces or 3-folds with -semistable tangent bundles; based on a criterion of Kaji by looking atthe stability of Frobenius pull-backs of their tangent bundles. The first result implies that a conjecture of Kleiman--Piene is true in case X is of general type of dimension . The second result is a generalization of the injectivity for curves.     

Extensions of distance preserving mappings in euclidean and hyperbolic geometry

Suppose that X is a real inner product space of (finite or infinite) dimension at least 2. A distance preserving mapping , where is a (finite or infinite) subset of a finite-dimensional subspace of X, can be extended to an isometry of X. This holds true for euclidean as well as for hyperbolic geometry. To both geometries there exist examples of non-extentable distance preserving , where S is not contained in a finite-dimensional subspace of X.     

16-Dimensional Smooth Projective Planes with Large Collineation Groups

Smooth projective planes are projective planes defined on smooth manifolds (i.e. the set of points and the set of lines are smooth manifolds) such that the geometric operations of join and intersection are smooth. A systematic study of such planes and of their collineation groups can be found in previous works of the author. We prove in this paper that a 16-dimensional smooth projective plane which admits a collineation group of dimension d 39 is isomorphic to the octonion projective plane P₂ O. For topological compact projective planes this is true if d 41. Note that there are nonclassical topological planes with a collineation group of dimension 40.     

Rigidity of minimal hypersurfaces of spheres with two principal curvatures

Let M be a compact oriented minimal hypersurface of the unit n-dimensional sphere Sⁿ. It is known that if the norm squared of the second fundamental form, , satisfies that for all , then M is isometric to a Clifford minimal hypersurface ([2], [5]). In this paper we will generalize this result for minimal hypersurfaces with two principal curvatures and dimension greater than 2. For these hypersurfaces we will show that if the average of the function is n - 1, then M must be a Clifford hypersurface. Received: 24 December 2002     

Transformations of Grassmannians preserving the class of base subsets

Let be a finite-dimensional projective space and be the Grassmannian consisting of all k-dimensional subspaces of . In the paper we show that transformations of sending base subsets to base subsets are induced by collineations of to itself or to the dual projective space . This statement generalizes the main result of the authors paper [19].     

Note on the existence of large minimal blocking sets in galois planes

A subsetS of a finite projective plane of orderq is called a blocking set ifS meets every line but contains no line. For the size of an inclusion-minimal blocking setq+ +Sq +1 holds ([6]). Ifq is a square, then inPG(2,q) there are minimal blocking sets with cardinalityq +1. Ifq is not a square, then the various constructions known to the author yield minimal blocking sets with less than 3q points. In the present note we show that inPG(2,q),q1 (mod 4) there are minimal blocking sets having more thanqlog₂ q/2 points. The blocking sets constructed in this note contain the union ofk conics, whereklog₂ q/2. A slight modification of the construction works forq3 (mod 4) and gives the existence of minimal blocking sets of sizecqlog₂ q for some constantc.As a by-product we construct minimal blocking sets of cardinalityq +1, i.e. unitals, in Galois planes of square order. Since these unitals can be obtained as the union of parabolas, they are not classical.     

A note on the isotopy problem for $$ \mathbb{R}^2 $$ -planes

For a class of stable planes we define a notion of isotopy equivalence with respect to that class and prove that any two planes of a certain class of -planes comprising all affine -planes are isotopy equivalent. Furthermore we obtain that all affine -planes are isotopy equivalent in the class of affine -planes. Finally we give an example which shows that this approach cannot be easily generalized to 2-dimensional projective planes, and we outline a different way for a possible generalization.Received: 27 April 2001     

Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity for nonhyperelliptic curves

The purpose here is to show that an irreducible, reduced, projective, nonhyperelliptic curve of degree d and genus g is n-regular for if Received: 10 July 2003     

Four-dimensional compact projective planes with doubly transitive action on the fixed pencil

We consider a four-dimensional compact projective plane =( , ) whose collineation group is six-dimensional and solvable with a nilradical N isomorphic to Nil × R, where Nil denotes the three-dimensional, simply connected, non-Abelian, nilpotent Lie group. We assume that fixes a flag pW, acts transitively on _p \{W}, and fixes no point in the set W{p}. We study the actions of and N on and on the pencil _p \{W}, in the case that does not contain a three-dimensional elation group. In the special situation that acts doubly transitively on _p {W}, we will determine all possible planes . There are exactly two series of such planes.     

Algebraic radicals and incidence algebras

In this note we prove the uniqueness of U in a group G with a spherical split-BN-pair of rank ,i.e., if G has such a BN-pair with a nilpotent normal subgroup of B, and , then and is a normal subgroup of G. Here is the corresponding group of Lie-type and the subgroup of generated by all root-subgroups corresponding to positive roots. Received: 19 May 2003