S\(U_ 4({\mathbb{C}})\) als Kollineationsgruppe in sechzehndimensionalen lokalkompakten Translationsebenen. \((SU_ 4({\mathbb{C}})\) as collineation group in sixteen-dimensional locally compact translation planes) (Q1090936)

This is part of the program to determine all locally compact projective planes \({\mathcal P}\) of positive finite dimension d which admit an automorphism group \(\Delta\) of dimension \(f\geq g-1,\) where g is the dimension of the full group of the d-dimensional classical plane. The cases \(d| 8\) are understood quite well. The only remaining possibility is \(d=16\) and \(g=78\) [\textit{R. Löwen}, J. Reine Angew. Math. 343, 108-122 (1983; Zbl 0524.57011)]. Quite likely, these planes are (duals of) translation planes. In this case, there is a fairly large compact subgroup \(\Phi\) fixing a triangle. Theorem. If \({\mathcal P}\) is a translation plane and \(\Phi\) is locally isomorphic to \(SU_ 4\cong Spin_ 6\), then \({\mathcal P}\) is the classical octonian plane, or \(\Phi\) is contained in a group \(\Psi \cong Spin_ 7\) and \({\mathcal P}\) is one of the planes of the author [Arch. Math. 48, 267-276 (1987)], or \(f<38\) and \(\Phi\) fixes only one affine point, or \(f\leq 34\). In all other cases dim \(\Phi\) \(<15\). Most of the paper is devoted to the situation that \(\Phi\) has only one affine fixed point a and hence acts irreducibly on the translation groups in two different directions. If the group of shears in one of these directions has dimension \(>2\), or if \(\Phi\) is not normal in the connected component of the stabilizer \(\Delta_ a\), then \({\mathcal P}\) is classical.