Degenerate conics revisited (Q919266)

Let K denote a skew field \({\mathfrak V}\) a right vector space over K of dimension 3, \({\mathfrak p}\), \({\mathfrak q}\), \({\mathfrak a}\) a basis of \({\mathfrak V}\), and \(a\in K\setminus Z(K)\). These data define a degenerate conic \(\Gamma =\Gamma^ 0\cup \Gamma^ x\) in the projective plane \({\mathcal P}({\mathfrak V})\) with proper part \(\Gamma^ 0=\{({\mathfrak pt}+{\mathfrak q}ta+{\mathfrak a})K| \quad t\in K\}\) and improper part \(\Gamma^ x=PQ\), where \(P={\mathfrak p}K\) and \(Q={\mathfrak p}K\). The set \({\mathfrak n}=\{({\mathfrak pt}+{\mathfrak q}ta)K| \quad t\in K\}\) consists of the points of PQ which are collinear with two distinct points of \(\Gamma^ 0\). For a subset \({\mathcal S}\) of \({\mathcal P}({\mathfrak V})\) we denote by \({\mathcal L}_{{\mathcal S}}\) the set of lines intersecting \({\mathcal S}\) in at least two points. The trace space \((\Gamma^ 0,{\mathcal L}_{\Gamma}0)\) is shown to be isomorphic to the affine space K over Z(A), where \(A=Z(K)(a)\), and is an affine plane if and only if a has degree 2 over Z(K). In the rest of the paper attention is confined to the latter case. Then \((\Gamma^ 0\cup {\mathfrak n}\), \(L_{\Gamma^ 0\cup {\mathfrak n}})\) is a Baer subplane of \({\mathcal P}({\mathfrak V})\) with Z(A) as underlying field. Fundamental chains of \(\Gamma\) are characterized as orbits of the group of collineations of \({\mathcal P}({\mathfrak V})\) fixing \(\Gamma^ 0\cup {\mathfrak n}\) pointwise. More results are reformulated in a geometric language which had earlier been given in a purely algebraic way.