Almost simple groups with socle 3 D 4(q) act on finite linear spaces

After the classification of flag-transitive linear spaces, attention has now turned to line-transitive linear spaces. Such spaces are first divided into the point-imprimitive and the point-primitive, the first class is usually easy by the theorem of Delandtsheer and Doyen. The primitive ones are now subdivided, according to the O’Nan-Scotte theorem and some further work by Camina, into the socles which are an elementary abelian or non-abelian simple. In this paper, we consider the latter. Namely, T ≤ G ≤ Aut(T) and G acts line-transitively on finite linear spaces, where T is a non-abelian simple. We obtain some useful lemmas. In particular, we prove that when T is isomorphic to ³ D ₄(q), then T is line-transitive, where q is a power of the prime p.