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 This (hitherto unpublished) result is one of the ingredients of H. Salzmann's characterizations of the Cayley plane among general compact projective planes by the size of its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.     

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.     

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     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Zentrale und axiale Kollineationen in projektiven Hjelmslev-Ebenen

Zusammenfassung Es gibt in projektiven Hjelmslev-Ebenen zentrale (axiale) Kollineationen, die keine Achse (Zentrum) haben. Das Produkt zweier zentraler Kollineationen s und t mit gemeinsamer Achse kann eine axiale Kollineation ohne Zentrum sein oder auch eine axiale Kollineation mit einem Zentrum, daß auf keiner Verbindungsgeraden der Zentren von s und t liegt.

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In ordinary projective planes every central collineation has an axis and every collineation with an axis is central. We prove in this paper, that this proposition doesn't hold in projective Hjelmslev-planes. We construct a projective Hjelmslev-plane and collineations with centers Pand Q on a common axis g such that the product of these collineations has no center but the axis g. In the dual plane we get a central collineation without an axis.

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Herrn R. Artzy zum siebzigsten Geburtstag gewidmet     

Smooth Hughes planes are classical

We prove that the only compact projective Hughes planes which are smooth projective planes are the classical planes over the complex numbers \Bbb C \Bbb C , the quaternions \Bbb H \Bbb H , and the Caley numbers \Bbb O \Bbb O . As a by-product this shows that an 8-dimensional smooth projective plane which admits a collineation group of dimension d 3 17d \geq 17 is isomorphic to the quaternion projective plane P ₂\Bbb H {\cal P _2\Bbb H }. For topological compact projective planes this is true if d 3 19d \geq 19, and this bound is sharp.     

Four-Dimensional Compact Projective Planes of Orbit Type (1,1)

We consider 4-dimensional flexible projective planes with the following properties: The collineation group is a 6-dimensional solvable Lie group which fixes some flag ∞ ∈ W. Furthermore, the collineation group has a 1-dimensional orbit both on W and on the pencil of lines through {∞}. We show that there are three different families of planes with these properties.     

Una proprietà gruppale delle involuzioni planari che mutano in sé un'ovale di un piano proiettivo finito

Summary The purpose of the present paper is to prove the following theorem: Let Ω be an oval in the projective plane P of odd order n. If P admits a collineation group G wich maps Ω onto itself and is doubly transitive on Ω, then P is desarguesian, Ω is a conic and G contains all collineations in the little projective group PSL(2, n) of P wich leaves Ω invariant.

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Entrata in Redazione il 5 april 1977.     

Four-Dimensional Compact Projective Planes with Collineation Group N6,28

We consider a 4-dimensional compact projective plane $\pi = ({\cal P},{\cal L})$ ?e whose collineation group σ is 6-dimensional and solvable with a 4-dimensional nilradical N. We assume that σ fixes a flag υ ∈ W, acts transitively on ${\cal L}_{\upsilon}\setminus \lbrace W \rbrace$ ?e, and fixes no point in the set W{υ}. If π is neither a translation plane nor a dual translation plane, nor a shift plane, then we will show that ?(N) ? nil × R, i.e. the local structure of N is uniquely determined.     

4-Dimensional compact projective planes with a 5-dimensional nilradical

The article is a contribution to the classification of all 4-dimensional flexible compact projective planes. We assume that the collineation group is a 6-dimensional solvable Lie group which fixes some flag. If, moreover, the nilradical of the collineation group is 5-dimensional, then we get 4 families of new planes which are neither translation planes nor shift planes.Meinem Lehrer H. Salzmann zum 65. Geburtstag am 3.11.1995 in Dankbarkeit gewidmet     

Projektive Darstellung der Moulton-Ebenen

The Moulton planes can be characterized as 2-dimensional topological projective planes having a 4-dimensional collineation group, which fixes exactly one nonincident point-line-pair aw. We give a representation of these geometries on the real protective plane such that a and W coincide with the origin and the line of infinity. This representation shows that the collineation groups of nonisomorphic Moulton planes act differently, although they are isomorphic as topological groups.     

Large semisimple groups on 16-dimensional compact projective planes are almost simple

The paper deals with the so-called Salzmann program aiming to classify special geometries according to their automorphism groups. Here, topological connected compact projective planes are considered. If finite-dimensional, such planes are of dimension 2, 4, 8, or 16. The classical example of a 16-dimensional, compact projective plane is the projective plane over the octonions with 78-dimensional automorphism group E₆(?26). A 16-dimensional, compact projective plane P admitting an automorphism group of dimension 41 or more is classical, [18] 87.5 and 87.7. For the special case of a semisimple group Δ acting on P the same result can be obtained if dim δ ≧ 37, see [16]. Our aim is to lower this bound. We show: if Δ is semisimple and dim δ ≧ 29, then P is either classical or a Moufang-Hughes plane or Δ is isomorphic to Spin₉ (?, r), r ∈ {0, 1 }. The underlying paper contains the first part of the proof showing that Δ is in fact almost simple.     

On 4-dimensional Minkowski planes with 7-dimensional automorphism groups

This paper concerns 4-dimensional (topological locally compact connected) Minkowski planes that admit a 7-dimensional automorphism group . It is shown that such a plane is either classical or has a distinguished point that is fixed by the connected component of and that the derived affine plane at this point is a 4-dimensional translation plane with a 7-dimensional collineation group.This research was supported by a Feodor Lynen Fellowship.     

Some basic properties of planar Singer groups

A planar Singer group is a collineation group of a finite (in this article) projective plane acting regularly on the points of the plane. Theorem 1 gives a characterization of abelian planar Singer groups. This leads to a necessary and sufficient condition for an inner automorphism to be a multiplier. The Sylow 2-structure of a multiplier group and some of its consequences are given in Theorem 3. One important result in studying multipliers of an abelian Singer group is the existence of a common fixed line. We extend this to an arbitrary planar Singer group in Theorem 4. Theorem 5 studies the order of an abelian group of multiplers. If this order equals to the order of the plane plus 1, then the number of points of the plane is a prime. If this order is odd, then it is at most the planar order plus 1.Partially supported by a NSA grant.     

Large Almost Simple Groups Acting on 16-Dimensional Compact Projective Planes

 This paper deals with the so-called Salzmann program aiming to classify special geometries according to their automorphism groups. Here, topological connected compact projective planes are considered. If finite-dimensional, such planes are of dimension 2, 4, 8, or 16. The classical example of a 16-dimensional, compact projective plane is the projective plane over the octonions with 78-dimensional automorphism group E₆(−26). A 16-dimensional, compact projective plane ? admitting an automorphism group of dimension 41 or more is clasical, [23] 87.5 and 87.7. For the special case of a semisimple group Δ acting on ? the same result can be obtained if dim , see [22]. Our aim is to lower this bound. We show: if Δ is semisimple and dim , then ? is either classical or a Moufang-Hughes plane or Δ is isomorphic to Spin₉ (ℝ, r), r∈{0, 1}. The proof consists of two parts. In [16] it has been shown that Δ is in fact almost simple or isomorphic to SL₃?ċSpin₃ℝ. In the underlying paper we can therefore restrict our considerations to the case that Δ is almost simple, and the corresponding planes are classified.     

Large Almost Simple Groups Acting on 16-Dimensional Compact Projective Planes

 This paper deals with the so-called Salzmann program aiming to classify special geometries according to their automorphism groups. Here, topological connected compact projective planes are considered. If finite-dimensional, such planes are of dimension 2, 4, 8, or 16. The classical example of a 16-dimensional, compact projective plane is the projective plane over the octonions with 78-dimensional automorphism group E₆(−26). A 16-dimensional, compact projective plane ? admitting an automorphism group of dimension 41 or more is clasical, [23] 87.5 and 87.7. For the special case of a semisimple group Δ acting on ? the same result can be obtained if dim , see [22]. Our aim is to lower this bound. We show: if Δ is semisimple and dim , then ? is either classical or a Moufang-Hughes plane or Δ is isomorphic to Spin₉ (ℝ, r), r∈{0, 1}. The proof consists of two parts. In [16] it has been shown that Δ is in fact almost simple or isomorphic to SL₃?ċSpin₃ℝ. In the underlying paper we can therefore restrict our considerations to the case that Δ is almost simple, and the corresponding planes are classified. Received 10 February 1997; in final form 19 December 1997     

Flat projective planes with 2-dimensional collineation group fixing at least two lines and more than two points

All flat projective planes whose collineation group contains a 2-dimensional subgroup fixing at least two lines and more than two points are classified. Furthermore, all isomorphism types of such planes are determined. This completes the classification of all flat projective planes admitting a 2-dimensional collineation group.