Sixteen-Dimensional Locally Compact Translation Planes with Large Automorphism Groups having no Fixed Points

The 16-dimensional compact projective planes whose automorphism group contains a closed connected subgroup fixing a line, but no point and having dimension at least 35 are determined. It is shown that these planes all belong to three families of planes determined by H. Löwe and the author, and hence are explicitly known. A major stepping stone to this goal is a result by H. Salzmann according to which every such plane is a translation plane.     

Distant-preserving epimorphisms between projective Klingenberg planes

This paper deals with epimorphisms between arbitrary projective Klingenberg planes which preserve the non-neighbor relation. Our main result is an algebraic characterization of such epimorphisms which generalizes a theorem of F. D. Veldkamp [7] for distant preserving epimorphisms between projective ring planes.     

Neighbor-preserving epimorphisms between projective Klingenberg planes

This paper deals with neighbor-preserving epimorphisms between arbitrary projective Klingenberg planes. Our main result is an algebraic characterization of such epimorphisms which generalizes a theorem of J. C. Ferrar and F. D. Veldkamp [2] for neighbor-preserving epimorphisms between projective ring planes     

4-dimensional compact projective planes with a 7-dimensional collineation group

The classification of 4-dimensional compact projective planes having a 7-dimensional collineation group is completed. Besides one single shift plane all such planes are either translation planes or dual translation planes.Dedicated to H. R. Salzmann on his 60th birthday     

Automorphism groups of compact projective planes

Compact connected projective planes have been investigated extensively in the last 30 years, mostly by studying their automorphism groups. It is our aim here to remove the connectedness assumption in some general results of Salzmann [31] and Hähl [14] on automorphism groups of compact projective planes. We show that the continuous collineations of every compact projective plane form a locally compact transformation group (Theorem 1), and that the continuous collineations fixing a quadrangle in a compact translation plane form a compact group (Corollary to Theorem 3). Furthermore we construct a metric for the topology of a quasifield belonging to a compact projective translation plane, using the modular function of its additive group (Theorem 2).     

A quadric model for Klingenberg chain spaces

Consider a finite-dimensional algebra with involution over a commutative local ring. The chain geometry over this algebra is a Klingenberg chain space. We embed this structure into a projective Klingenberg space, such that the points are identified with points of a quadric and the chains with plane sections.     

Shear planes

A shear plane is a 2n-dimensional stable plane admitting a quasi-perspective collineation group which is a vector group of the same dimension 2n and fixes no point. We show that all of these planes can be derived from a special kind of partial spreads by a construction analogous to the construction of (punctured) dual translation planes from compact spreads. Finally we give a criterion (and examples) for shear planes which are not isomorphic to an open subplane of a topological projective plane.     

A class of unitals of order q which can be embedded in two different planes of order q2

By deriving the desarguesian plane of order q² for every prime power q a unital of order q is constructed which can be embedded in both the Hall plane and the dual of the Hall plane of order q² which are non-isomorphic projective planes. The representation of translation planes in the fourdimensional projective space of J. André and F. Buekenhouts construction of unitals in these planes are used. It is shown that the full automorphism groups of these unitals are just the collineation groups inherited from the classical unitals.     

Die Oktavenebene als Translationsebene mit großer Kollineationsgruppe

It is shown that the affine plane over the Cayley numbers is the only 16-dimensional locally compact topological translation plane having a collineation group of dimension at least 41. This (hitherto unpublished) result is one of the ingredients of H. Salzmann's characterizations of the Cayley plane among general compact projective planes by the size of its collineation group.The proof involves various case studies of the possibilities for the structure and size of collineation groups of 16-dimensional locally compact translation planes. At the same time, these case studies are important steps for a classification program aiming at the explicit determination of all such translation planes having a collineation group of dimension at least 38.     

Laguerre and Minkowski planes with neighbor relation

In [7] we have introduced the notion of a Möbius plane with neighbor relation as a generalization of ordinary Möbius planes. In this paper we present two other classes of circle geometries which are locally affine Klingenberg planes: Laguerre and Minkowski planes with neighbor relation.Research supported by IWONL grant no-840037     

Polaritäten Ebener projektiver Ebenen

A projective plane is called flat if the spaces of points and lines are locally compact and 2-dimensional and the joining of points and the intersecting of lines are continuous. H. Salzmann studied planes of this type in [11]–[21]. Here polarities of such planes are considered. In II general properties of polarities of flat planes are discussed. For example, a polarity with absolute points has always an oval of absolute points. A flat projective plane with a cartesian ternary field K admits a polarity iff multiplication in K is commutative. In III the polarities of flat projective planes with a 3-dimensional collineation group are determined.     

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.     

Conic blocking sets in Desarguesian projective planes

Define a conic blocking set to be a set of lines in a Desarguesian projective plane such that all conics meet these lines. Conic blocking sets can be used in determining if a collection of planes in projective three-space forms a flock of a quadratic cone. We discuss trivial conic blocking sets and conic blocking sets in planes of small order. We provide a construction for conic blocking sets in planes of non-prime order, and we make additional comments about the structure of these conic blocking sets in certain planes of even order.     

Coordinate rings of topological Klingenberg planes I: The affine perspective

Although the coordinate ternary field of a topological affine plane is topological, the converse does not hold. However, an affine plane is topological precisely when its coordinate biternary fields are topological. We extend this result to topological biternary rings and their topological affine Klingenberg planes. Then we examine the locally compact situation. Finally, following the ideas of Knarr and Weigand, we show that in certain circumstances, the continuity of the ternary operators is sufficient to ensure that the biternary ring is topological. This facilitates the construction of locally compact, locally connected affine Klingenberg planes.Dedicated to Professor Dr. Helmut Salzmann on his 65th birthday     

On the Grassmanian of lines in PG(4,q) and R(1,2) reguli

An R(1,2) regulus is a collection of q+1 mutually skew planes in PG(5,q) with the property that a line meeting three of the planes must meet all the planes. An (l,π)-configuration is the collection of lines in PG(4,q) meeting a line l and a plane π skew to l. A correspondence between (l,π)-configurations in PG(4-,q) and R(1,2) reguli in the associated Grassmanian space G(1,4) is examined. Bose has shown that R(1,2) reguli represent Baer subplanes of a Desarguesian projective plane in a linear representation of the plane. With the purpose of examining the relations between two Baer subplanes of PG(2,q²), the author examines the possible intersections of a 3-flat with an R(1,2) regulus.     

Coordinate rings of topological Klingenberg planes II: the algebraic foundation for a projective theory

Ternary fields are the coordinate rings of affine and projective planes; however, the planes constructed over topological ternary fields are not necessarily topological. Surprisingly, the explanation of this phenomenon becomes evident in the more general theory of topological Klingenberg planes as we exhibited in [3] for the affine case. However, in the projective setting, we have a more formidable task. We must develop a new coordinate ring that admits a topological structure suitable for coordinatizing topological PK-planes. We accomplish this in two stages. In this paper, we revisit the standard coordinate rings [1, 11], discuss and resolve their deficiencies by developing a new coordinate ring as a unique extension of these refined standard rings. In a subsequent paper [4], we show that this new ring can be suitably topologized to coordinatize a topological PK-plane. This last result can then be used to explain why topological ternary fields do not necessarily coordinatize topological projective planes. Received 17 February 2000; revised 10 June 2000.     

Smooth Projective Planes

Using symplectic topology and the Radon transform, we prove that smooth 4-dimensional projective planes are diffeomorphic to . We define the notion of a plane curve in a smooth projective plane, show that plane curves in high dimensional regular planes are lines, prove that homeomorphisms preserving plane curves are smooth collineations, and prove a variety of results analogous to the theory of classical projective planes. *Thanks to Robert Bryant and John Franks.     

The class of projective planes is noncomputable

Computable projective planes are investigated. It is stated that a free projective plane of countable rank in some inessential expansion is unbounded. This implies that such a plane has infinite computable dimension. The class of all computable projective planes is proved to be noncomputable (up to computable isomorphism).     

Extended dual affine planes

We study a class of diagram geometries, achieve a characterization of extended dual affine planes, and embed extended dual affine planes in extended projective planes. The geometries studied are rank 3 diagram geometries such that the residue of a point is a dual net, and the residue of a plane is linear; the dual of such a geometry has partitions on lines and planes which are reminiscent of parallelism of lines and planes of an affine 3-space. Examples of these geometries (some in dual form) include extended dual affine planes, Laguerre planes, 3-nets, and orthogonal arrays of strength 3. Theorem: Any such finite geometry satisfying Buekenhout's intersection property, and such that any two points are coplanar, is an extended dual affine plane (and has order 2, 4, or 10). Theorem: This geometry may be embedded in an extended projective plane of the same order.This research was partially supported by NSF Grant MCS-8102361.     

Four-dimensional compact projective planes with two fixed points

We determine all 4-dimensional compact projective planes with a solvable 6-dimensional collineation group fixing two distinct points, and acting transitively on the affine pencils through the fixed points. These planes form a 2-parameter family, and one exceptional member of this family is the dual of the exceptional translation plane with 8-dimensional collineation group.