Extensions of Steiner triple systems
Steiner triple systems are the nontrivial 2-designs with the smallest number of points per line, namely exactly three. There is an extensive literature about them, which would give the impression that everything is said about them. Yet, the paper under review adds some very interesting stuff to this literature. It is really a standard example of how algebra and geometry go hand-in-hand and make each other stronger.\N\NA Veblen point in a Steiner triple system (STS) is a point with the property that any pair of lines through it generates a projective plane of order 2. It follows from the Veblen-Young characterisation of projective spaces that an STS all points of which are Veblen points is a projective space of order 2. The paper under review improves this result by showing that, if an STS contains \(v\) points of which at least \(\frac{v-7}{8}\) are Veblen, then it is a projective space. This is only a corollary of a more general result that the authors prove connecting \(v\) to the maximal number of Veblen points. The proof proceeds via Schreier extensions of associative Steiner loops and is purely algebraic, but still beautiful. Their methods allow constructions of extensions of STSs (isomorphic to projective spaces) to larger STSs. They also discuss and study a more general extension method using the so-called Steiner operator. This for instance allows to extend the affine plane of order 3 to a STS with 19 points (in which the affine plane is then a hyperplane).\N\NAs already mentioned, the proofs are algebraic. Geometric notions are translated into algebra and then the results are translated back to geometry. For instance, Veblen points correspond to central elements of the Steiner loop. The authors also consider equivalence and isomorphisms of extensions, in their proofs using ideas of (co)homological algebra. All in all a very nice paper with interesting and nontrivial results that I enjoyed reading.
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