A characterization of Clifford parallelism by automorphisms (Q1623010)

\textit{D. Betten} and \textit{R. Riesinger} [Adv. Geom. 14, No. 1, 175--189 (2014; Zbl 1291.51011)] showed that the automorphism group \(\Sigma=\mathrm{Aut}\,\Pi\) of a topological parallelism \(\Pi\) of the real projective 3-space is a closed subgroup of PGL\((4,\mathbb{R})\), and thus is a Lie group. Moreover, the dimension of \(\Sigma\) is at most 6, and one has a Clifford parallelism if \(\Sigma\) is at least 5-dimensional. \textit{D. Betten} and the present author [Result. Math. 72, No. 1--2, 1021--1030 (2017; Zbl 1379.51003)] proved that the identity component \(\Sigma^1\) of \(\Sigma\) is compact and hence is conjugate to a (closed, connected) subgroup of \(\mathrm{PSO}(4,\mathbb{R})\). This result is used in the paper under review to show that \(\dim \Sigma \geq 4\) characterizes Clifford parallelisms. The essential case to consider is when \(\Sigma^1\) is isomorphic to \(\mathrm{SO}(3,\mathbb{R})\times \mathrm{SO}(2,\mathbb{R})\). An analysis of the action of the first factor on \(\Pi\) and of the stabilizer of a spread in \(\Pi\) yields that spreads in \(\Pi\) are \(\mathrm{SO}(3,\mathbb{R})\)-orbits, and one thus has a Clifford parallelism.