A characterization of Grassmann graphs (Q1902970): Difference between revisions

Let \(q\) be a prime power, and let \(e\) be an integer satisfying \(1 \leq e \leq n - 1\). Then the Grassmann graph \(\Gamma (e,q,n)\) is the graph the vertices of which are the \(e \)-dimensional subspaces of a vector space of dimension \(n\) over a finite field \(F_q\), where two vertices are adjacent iff they meet in a subspace of dimension \(e - 1\) or, equivalently, iff they span a subspace of dimension \(e + 1\). The author obtains by Theorem 1.1 and by the more general main Theorem 2.3, in which most of the regularity conditions are dropped, a characterization of \(\Gamma (e,q,n)\) in terms of parameters formulated in Corollary 1.2: The Grassmann graphs \(\Gamma (e,q,n)\) satisfying \(e \neq 2\), \(n - 2\), \({n \over 2}\), \({1 \over 2} (n \pm 1)\) and \(e \neq {1 \over 2} (n \pm 2)\) if \(q \in \{2,3\}\) and \(e \neq {1 \over 2} (n \pm 3)\) if \(q = 2\) are uniquely determined as distance-regular graphs by their intersection arrays. In general, Grassmann graphs \(\Gamma (2,q,n)\), \(n \geq 4\), are not determined by their parameters.