Adjacency preserving mappings of invariant subspaces of a null system

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Consider an \(n\)-dimensional projective space \(\Pi\) over some field, where \(n = 2r +1\) for some \(r\geq 1\). Let \(\delta\) be a null system on \(\Pi\), that is a polarity on \(\Pi\), such that every point is contained in its polar. Let \(I_r\) denote the space of \(r\)-dimensional subspaces of \(\Pi\) invariant under \(\Pi\). Two elements of \(I_r\) are called adjacent, if their intersection is of dimension \(r-1\). The collineations \(f\) on \(\Pi\) with \(\delta f = f\delta\) form the basic group. The main result of this paper states that the basic group consists precisely of those collineations on \(\Pi\) that induce an adjacency preserving surjection on \(I_r\). This result extends a result of \textit{W. L. Chow} [Ann. Math., Princeton, II. Ser. 50, 32-67 (1949; Zbl 0040.22901)] which states that the basic group consists precisely of those collineations \(f\) on \(\Pi\) that induce bijections on \(I_r\) such that \(f\) and \(f^{-1}\) are adjacency preserving. As a corollary, the main result is employed to characterize Lie transformation in Lie geometries. The basic idea of the proof is to show that the weaker hypotheses of the main theorem in this paper already imply the stronger assumptions of Chow's theorem. The proof is elegant, mainly self contained and requires little more than linear algebra. Even though points and lines are never really mentioned, large parts of the proof are in fact purely geometric and take place in the associated dual polar space considered as a point-line geometry. Some of the preliminary results in Section 2 should be compared with results on dual polar spaces as e.g. investigated by \textit{P. J. Cameron} [Geom. Dedicata 12, 75-85 (1982; Zbl 0473.51002)]. Since also the purely geometric results are stated in terms of linear algebra, it is not obvious, which of the arguments are purely geometric and hold in any dual polar space and which arguments, if any, depend on the fact that a dual polar space associated with a null system is considered. In geometric terms the paper proves the following. Every epimorphism of a dual polar space associated with a null system is already an isomorphism. Perhaps this result, possibly in some weaker form, can be generalized to arbitrary dual polar spaces. For generalized polygons there is the following result by \textit{A. Pasini} [Geom. Dedicata 15, 389-397 (1984; Zbl 0537.51002)]: An epimorphism between generalized \(n\)-gons is either already an isomorphism or the preimage of every point is infinite.











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