On flag transitive \(c. c^*\)-geometries admitting a duality (Q1125277)

In this paper, the author continues the programme of classifying all (finite) flag-transitive geometries with linear diagram \(c.c^*\) with the property that the point stabilizer (which is a doubly transitive group, hence of affine type or almost simple) is an almost simple group. Motivated by the fact that many examples admit a duality, the author considers those flag-transitive \(c.c^*\)-geometries which admit a duality. She then classifies under the additional assumption that the duality fixes a flag of type \(\{0,2\}\) (these types correspond to the extreme nodes of the diagram). The classification is, up to four sporadic examples and one infinite class (the truncated dual Coxeter complex of type \(D_n)\), not explicit: the point stabilizer has socle a rank 1 linear (over a field of order a perfect square) or unitary group. This result is obtained by ruling out the other doubly transitive almost simple rank 1 Chevalley groups (the Ree groups, the Suzuki groups and the linear groups over a field of order a non-square), or rather to prove that they give rise to the infinite class above. Also, the author shows that the case where the point stabilizer is a unitary group could be solved if no new examples with a linear group turn up. Finally, the results in this paper are applied to \(C_{2\cdot }c\)-geometries having two points per line, and yield a similar ``classification'' result.