A Family Of 2-Dimensional Minkowski Planes with Small Automorphism Groups

This paper concerns 2-dimensional (topological locally compact connected) Minkowski planes. It uses a construction of J. Jakóbowski [4] of Minkowski planes over half-ordered fields and applies it to the field of reals. This generalizes a construction by A. Schenkel [7] of 2-dimensional Minkowski planes admitting a 3-dimensional kernel. It is shown that most planes in this family of Minkowski planes have 0-dimensional and even trivial automorphism groups.     

Toroidal circle planes that are not Minkowski planes

We construct first examples of circle planes on the torus that are no Minkowski planes, but satisfy the same axiom of joining as flat Minkowski planes. The circle planes constructed by us form a special class ofhyperbola structures (see [4]) or(B*)-Geometrien (see [2]).This research was supported by a Feodor Lynen Fellowship and an ARC International Research Fellowship.     

On the Minkowski planes constructed by Artzy and Groh

The Minkowski planes constructed by R. Artzy and H. Groh [1] are characterized among the locally, connected and finite dimensional Minkowski planes as strongly semi-(p, w)-transitive Minkowski planes (see Theorem 2). The types of the Artzy-Groh planes in the typification of the Minkowski planes by M. Klein are determined (see Proposition 4). The second author was supported by a DAAD scholarship for a research visit at TU München. He sincerely thanks the Zentrum Mathematik der TU München for their hospitality.     

Nonclassical 4-Dimensional Minkowski Planes Obtained as Brothers of Semiclassical 4-Dimensional Laguerre Planes

We describe the first nonclassical 4-dimensional Minkowski planes and show that they have 6-dimensional automorphism groups. These planes are obtained by a construction of Schroth [18] from generalized quadrangles associated with the semiclassical 4-dimensional Laguerre planes. All 4-dimensional Minkowski planess that can be obtained in this way from the semiclassical 4-dimensional Laguerre planes are determined.     

Addendum to “A pascal theorem applied to minkowski geometry”

The results of the author's previous paper imply that the class of all (B^*S)-geometries of Benz (see Benz, Leissner, and Schaeffer [2])coincides, up to isomorphisms, with the class of all plane Minkowski geometries over commutative fields.     

A classification of Minkowski planes over half-ordered fields

This paper concerns a construction of Minkowski planes over half-ordered fields [5] and [20]. Solving various functional equations the Klein-Kroll types of these Minkowski planes are determined with respect toG- andq-translations and (p, q)-homotheties. Examples for some of the resulting types are given.     

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     

Nearaffine planes

In this paper we develop a theory for nearaffine planes analogous to the theory of ordinary affine translation planes. In a subsequent paper we shall use this theory to give a characterization of a certain class of Minkowski planes.     

Planar Functions and Planes of Lenz-Barlotti Class II

Planar functions were introduced by Dembowski and Ostrom [4] to describe projective planes possessing a collineation group with particular properties. Several classes of planar functions over a finite field are described, including a class whose associated affine planes are not translation planes or dual translation planes. This resolves in the negative a question posed in [4]. These planar functions define at least one such affine plane of order 3^e for every e 4 and their projective closures are of Lenz-Barlotti type II. All previously known planes of type II are obtained by derivation or lifting. At least when e is odd, the planes described here cannot be obtained in this manner.     

A note on Minkowski planes admitting groups of automorphisms of some large types with respect to homotheties

Monica Klein classified Minkowski planes with respect to linearly transitive subgroups of Minkowski homotheties. She obtained 23 possible types. In this paper we investigate Minkowski planes with respect to groups of automorphism of certain Klein types 12 and higher. We show that types 12 and 14 can only occur in finite miquelian Minkowski planes of order 3 or 5, and we provide examples for such groups. Furthermore, we prove that types 13 and 18 in finite Minkowski planes can only occur in miquelian planes.     

Flat Circle Planes as Integrals of Flat Affine Planes

In a previous article (Arch. Math. {64} (1995), 75–85) we showed that flat Laguerre planes can be constructed by'integrating' flat affine planes. It turns out that'most' of the known flat Laguerre planes arise in this manner. In this paper we show that similar constructions are also possible in the case of the other two kinds of flat circle planes, that is, the flat Möbius planes and the flat Minkowski planes. In particular, we show that many of the known flat Möbius planes can be constructed by integrating a closed strip taken from a flat affine plane. We also show how flat Minkowski planes arise as integrals of two flat affine planes. All known flat Minkowski planes can be constructed in this manner.     

Finite Minkowski planes

In this paper we give second characterizations of a certain class of finite Minkowski planes.     

Eine Kennzeichnung der miquelschen Minkowski-Ebenen durch Transitivitätseigenschaften

A characterization of miquelian Minkowski planes by means of transitivity properties is given. As a corollary we obtain that in the classification of M. Klein, class 22 is empty.

Herrn Helmut Salzmann zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet     

Flag transitive planes of orderq n with a long cyclel ∞ as a collineation

Baker and Ebert [1] presented a method for constructing all flag transitive affine planes of orderq ² havingGF(q) in their kernels for any odd prime powerq. Kantor [6; 7; 8] constructed many classes of nondesarguesian flag transitive affine planes of even order, each admitting a collineation, transitively permuting the points at infinity. In this paper, two classes of non-desarguesian flag transitive affine planes of odd order are constructed. One is a class of planes of orderq ⁿ , whereq is an odd prime power andn 3 such thatq ⁿ 1 (mod 4), havingGF(q) in their kernels. The other is a class of planes of orderq ⁿ , whereq is an odd prime power andn 2 such thatq ⁿ 1 (mod 4), havingGF(q) in their kernels. Since each plane of the former class is of odd dimension over its kernel, it is not isomorphic to any plane constructed by Baker and Ebert [1]. The former class contains a flag transitive affine plane of order 27 constructed by Kuppuswamy Rao and Narayana Rao [9]. Any plane of the latter class of orderq ⁿ such thatn 1 (mod 2), is not isomorphic to any plane constructed by Baker ad Ebert [1].The author is grateful to the referee for many helpful comments.     

Equi-isoclinic planes of Euclidean spaces

In a Euclidean space, a p-set of equi-isoclinic planes is a set of p isoclinic planes of which each pair has the same non-zero angle.The Euclidean 4-space E⁴ contains a unique congruence class of quadruples of equi-isoclinic planes, whereas quintuples of equi-isoclinic planes do not exist in E⁴.In the following a method is given to derive sets of equi-isoclinic planes in Euclidean spaces. We find again the well-known sets of equi-isoclinic planes of E⁴. The quadruples of equi-isoclinic planes in E⁵ are derived. It turns out that E⁵ contains one congruence class of such quadruples which are not flat quadruples and one congruence class of quintuples of equi-isoclinic planes, whereas sextuples of equi-isoclinic planes do not exist in E⁵.It appears that the symmetry group of that quintuple is isomorphic to the symmetric group S₅.     

The octahedron theorem in Minkowski three-space a metric vector space proof of Miquel's theorem in the Laguerre plane

As is well known [1, p.480], the cycles and spears of the real Laguerre plane can be represented by the points and null planes of three-dimensional Minkowski space. Miquel's theorem in the Laguerre plane can then be expressed as an intrinsically interesting Minkowski space theorem the octahedron theorem. We outline the correspondence between the two theorems, and then give a metric vector space proof of the octahedron theorem, thereby providing an alternate proof of Miquel's theorem. We then discuss the generalization of both theorems to more general spaces.     

Key Distribution Patterns Using Tangent Circle Structures

The problem of key management in a communications network is of primary importance. A key distribution pattern is an incidence structure which provides a secure method of distributing keys in a large network reducing storage requirements. It is of interest to find explicit constructions for key distribution patterns. In O'Keefe [5–7], examples are shown using the finite circle geometries (Minkowski, Laguerre and inversive planes); in Quinn [12], examples are constructed from conics in finite projective and affine planes. In this paper, we construct some examples using the finite tangent-circle structures, introduced in Quattrocchi and Rinaldi [10] and we give a comparison of the storage requirements.     

Geometric algebra of strictly convex Minkowski planes

Imposing geometric or group-theoretical conditions on left reflections or the group \({\mathfrak{G}}\) generated by them, we obtain many characterizations of the Euclidean plane and of Radon planes within the framework of strictly convex Minkowski planes. In particular, Bachmann’s view of geometry provides a rich source of pertinent conditions on \({\mathfrak{G}}\) . A special role in characterizing the Euclidean plane and Radon planes is played by the shape of the locus of images of a point x under the set of left reflections in lines having a point distinct from x in common.     

On resolvable finite Minkowski planes

Among the known finite Minkowski planes we determine an infinite family of examples admitting a partition of the set of blocks into equivalence classes, each of which in turn partitions the point set; in particular non-miquelian finite Minkowski planes with this property exist.work done within the activity of GNSAGA of CNR and supported by the Italian Ministry of Public Education     

The Fermat–Torricelli Problem in Normed Planes and Spaces

We investigate the Fermat–Torricelli problem in d-dimensional real normed spaces or Minkowski spaces, mainly for d=2. Our approach is to study the Fermat–Torricelli locus in a geometric way. We present many new results, as well as give an exposition of known results that are scattered in various sources, with proofs for some of them. Together, these results can be considered to be a minitheory of the Fermat–Torricelli problem in Minkowski spaces and especially in Minkowski planes. This demonstrates that substantial results about locational problems valid for all norms can be found using a geometric approach.