Cell Decompositions of the Projective Plane with Petrie Polygons of Constant Length

We study dual pairs of combinatorial face-to-face cell decompositions of the real projective plane P ² such that their canonically induced cell decompositions on the 2-sphere S ² form dual pairs of combinatorical types of convex polyhedra, and such that these dual pairs share two natural properties with those induced by dual pairs of Platonic solids: (1) Every Petrie polygon is a finite simple closed polygon of length 2(n-1) for some fixed n. (2) Every pair of Petrie polygons has precisely two common edges. Such pairs of face-to-face cell decompositions of the projective plane are in one-to-one correspondence with n-element pseudoline arrangements. We study in particular those dual pairs of cell decompositions in which has only 3-valent vertices, i.e., via the above one-to-one correspondence: p ₃-maximal pseudoline arrangements. A p ₃ -maximal pseudoline arrangement with n elements in turn determines a neighborly 2-manifold with Euler characteristic χ = n(7-n)/6, and vice versa, this neighborly 2-manifold uniquely determines its generating p ₃ -maximal pseudoline arrangement. We provide new inductive constructions for finding infinite example classes of p ₃-maximal pseudoline arrangements from small existing ones, we describe an algorithm for generating them, we provide a complete list of existence up to n = 40, and we discuss their properties. Received July 18, 1996, and in revised form October 28, 1996.