Special Moufang sets, their root groups and their {micro}-maps

We prove Timmesfeld's conjecture that special abstract rankone groups are quasisimple. We give two characterizations ofthe root groups in special Moufang sets: a normal subgroup ofthe point stabilizer is a root group if it is either regular,or nilpotent and transitive. We prove that if a root group ofa special Moufang set contains an involution, then it is ofexponent 2. We also show that the root groups are abelian ifand only if the so-called µ-maps are involutions.