Affine partial line spaces (Q5954173)

The author gives a geometric characterization of the connected components of the Segre product of a family of affine spaces. To this end he defines an affine partial line space as a partial line space with an equivalence relation on the line set satisfying the usual properties required from parallelity. These properties imply that the parallelity relation can be extended to the class of all affine subspaces and that through each point there passes precisely one maximal affine subspace from each parallelity class. Connected components of Segre products of affine spaces are then characterized as those affine partial lines which contain no closed jumping polygonal paths, where a path is called jumping if no two of its lines are parallel to the same maximal affine subspace.