Tits geometries and parabolic systems of rank 3 (Q1063688): Difference between revisions

A weak parabolic system \({\mathfrak R}=\{X_ i\), \(i=1,...,n\}\) of a group G is a set of subgroups generating G such that (1) \(G\neq <X_ j|\) \(j\in J\subset I=\{1,...,n\}>\), (2) \(X_ i=O^{p'}(X_ i/O_ p(X_ i))\) is a perfect central extension of a finite rank 1 group of Lie-type in char p, (3) \(X_{ij}=O^{p'}(<X_ i,X_ j>/O_ p(<X_ i,X_ j>))\) is a perfect central extension of a finite rank 2 group of Lie-type in char p (also central products of groups of rank 1 and some degenerated cases are allowed), (4) all the \(X_ i\) and \(X_{ij}\) have a common Sylow p-subgroup S. Then usually p is called the characteristic of \({\mathfrak R}\) and n is called the rank. Then one can introduce a graph for \({\mathfrak R}\) denoted by \(\Delta\) (\({\mathfrak R})\). The vertex set is I and i and j are connected by an edge iff \(X_{ij}\) is not a central product of two groups of Lie-rank 1. In this paper the author proves a very important theorem in the theory of parabolic systems. He shows that the graph of a weak parabolic system of rank 3 and char 2 can never be a triangle. As usual he gets applications to locally finite rank 3 Tits chamber systems of classical type with chamber transitive automorphism group, and also to flag transitive locally finite rank 3 geometries of classical type M. The author gives a group-theoretical proof for the theorem. He applies pushing-up, i.e. he uses knowledge of failure of factorization modules and the corresponding offending subgroups for the groups of Lie-type. The author announces that he has obtained a more general theorem using the recent ''amalgam- techniques''.