Valuations and hyperplanes of dual polar spaces

Valuations were introduced in De Bruyn and Vandecasteele (Valuations of near polygons,preprint, 2004) as a very important tool for classifying near polygons. In the present paper we study valuations of dual polar spaces. We will introduce the class of the SDPS-valuations and characterize these valuations. We will show that a valuation of a finite thick dual polar space is the extension of an SDPS-valuation if and only if no induced hex valuation is ovoidal or semi-classical. Each SDPS-valuation will also give rise to a geometric hyperplane of the dual polar space.     

On geometric SDPS-sets of elliptic dual polar spaces

Let n∈N?{0,1} and let K and K^′ be fields such that K^′ is a quadratic Galois extension of K. Let Q⁻(2n+1,K) be a nonsingular quadric of Witt index n in PG(2n+1,K) whose associated quadratic form defines a nonsingular quadric Q⁺(2n+1,K^′) of Witt index n+1 in PG(2n+1,K^′). For even n, we define a class of SDPS-sets of the dual polar space DQ⁻(2n+1,K) associated to Q⁻(2n+1,K), and call its members geometric SDPS-sets. We show that geometric SDPS-sets of DQ⁻(2n+1,K) are unique up to isomorphism and that they all arise from the spin embedding of DQ⁻(2n+1,K). We will use geometric SDPS-sets to describe the structure of the natural embedding of DQ⁻(2n+1,K) into one of the half-spin geometries for Q⁺(2n+1,K^′).     

Polarized and homogeneous embeddings of dual polar spaces

Let Γ be the dual of a classical polar space and let e be a projective embedding of Γ, defined over a commutative division ring. We shall prove that, if e is homogeneous, then it is polarized.     

Metric characterization of apartments in dual polar spaces

Let Π be a polar space of rank n and let Gk(Π), k∈{0,…,n−1} be the polar Grassmannian formed by k-dimensional singular subspaces of Π. The corresponding Grassmann graph will be denoted by Γk(Π). We consider the polar Grassmannian Gn−1(Π) formed by maximal singular subspaces of Π and show that the image of every isometric embedding of the n-dimensional hypercube graph Hn in Γn−1(Π) is an apartment of Gn−1(Π). This follows from a more general result concerning isometric embeddings of Hm, m?n in Γn−1(Π). As an application, we classify all isometric embeddings of Γn−1(Π) in Γn^′−1(Π^′), where Π^′ is a polar space of rank n^′?n.     

Minimal full polarized embeddings of dual polar spaces

Let Δ be a thick dual polar space of rank n ≥ 2 admitting a full polarized embedding e in a finite-dimensional projective space Σ, i.e., for every point x of Δ, e maps the set of points of Δ at non-maximal distance from x into a hyperplane e∗(x) of Σ. Using a result of Kasikova and Shult [11], we are able the show that there exists up to isomorphisms a unique full polarized embedding of Δ of minimal dimension. We also show that e∗ realizes a full polarized embedding of Δ into a subspace of the dual of Σ, and that e∗ is isomorphic to the minimal full polarized embedding of Δ. In the final section, we will determine the minimal full polarized embeddings of the finite dual polar spaces DQ(2n,q), DQ ⁻(2n+1,q), DH(2n−1,q ²) and DW(2n−1,q) (q odd), but the latter only for n≤ 5. We shall prove that the minimal full polarized embeddings of DQ(2n,q), DQ ⁻(2n+1,q) and DH(2n−1,q ²) are the `natural' ones, whereas this is not always the case for DW(2n−1, q).B. De Bruyn: Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation - Flanders.     

Hyperplanes and projective embeddings of dual polar spaces

This paper is based on the invited talk of the author at the Combinatorics 2010 conference which was held in Verbania (Italy) from June 27th till July 3rd 2010. It discusses hyperplanes and full projective embeddings of dual polar spaces, as well as some of their mutual connections. Many of the discussed results are very recent.     

Two classes of hyperplanes of dual polar spaces without subquadrangular quads

Let Π be one of the following polar spaces: (i) a nondegenerate polar space of rank n−1?2 which is embedded as a hyperplane in Q(2n,K); (ii) a nondegenerate polar space of rank n?2 which contains Q(2n,K) as a hyperplane. Let Δ and DQ(2n,K) denote the dual polar spaces associated with Π and Q(2n,K), respectively. We show that every locally singular hyperplane of DQ(2n,K) gives rise to a hyperplane of Δ without subquadrangular quads. Suppose Π is associated with a nonsingular quadric Q⁻(2n+?,K) of PG(2n+?,K), ?∈{−1,1}, described by a quadratic form of Witt-index , which becomes a quadratic form of Witt-index when regarded over a quadratic Galois extension of K. Then we show that the constructed hyperplanes of Δ arise from embedding.     

On the simple connectedness of hyperplane complements in dual polar spaces

Let Δ be a dual polar space of rank n≥4, H be a hyperplane of Δ and Γ?Δ?H be the complement of H in Δ. We shall prove that, if all lines of Δ have more than 3 points, then Γ is simply connected. Then we show how this theorem can be exploited to prove that certain families of hyperplanes of dual polar spaces, or all hyperplanes of certain dual polar spaces, arise from embeddings.     

Locally singular hyperplanes in thick dual polar spaces of rank 4

We study (i-)locally singular hyperplanes in a thick dual polar space Δ of rank n. If Δ is not of type DQ(2n,K), then we will show that every locally singular hyperplane of Δ is singular. We will describe a new type of hyperplane in DQ(8,K) and show that every locally singular hyperplane of DQ(8,K) is either singular, the extension of a hexagonal hyperplane in a hex or of the new type.     

Real partitions of measure spaces

Translated fromSibirskii Matematicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 207–209, January–February, 1994.     

A polynomial dual of partitions

Let P(x) = Σ_i=0ⁿa_ixⁱ be a nonnegative integral polynomial. The polynomial P(x) is m-graphical, and a multi-graph G a realization of P(x), provided there exists a multi-graph G containing exactly P(1) points where a_i of these points have degree i for 0≤i≤n. For multigraphs G, H having polynomials P(x), Q(x) and number-theoretic partitions (degree sequences) π, ?, the usual product P(x)Q(x) is shown to be the polynomial of the Cartesian product G × H, thus inducing a natural product π? which extends that of juxtaposing integral multiple copies of ?. Skeletal results are given on synthesizing a multi-graph G via a natural Cartesian product G₁ × … × G_k having the same polynomial (partition) as G. Other results include an elementary sufficient condition for arbitrary nonnegative integral polynomials to be graphical.     

On the simple connectedness of hyperplane complements in dual polar spaces, II

Suppose Δ is a dual polar space of rank n and H is a hyperplane of Δ. Cardinali, De Bruyn and Pasini have already shown that if n≥4 and the line size is greater than or equal to 4 then the hyperplane complement Δ−H is simply connected. This paper is a follow-up, where we investigate the remaining cases. We prove that the hyperplane complements are simply connected in all cases except for three specific types of hyperplane occurring in the smallest case, when the rank and the line size are both 3.