Examples of rigid, topological spreads of the real projective 3- space. (Q1179132)

A spread \(\mathfrak S\) of a projective space \(\Pi\) is called rigid if the only collineation of \(\Pi\) leaving \(\mathfrak S\) invariant is the identity. The translation plane associated with a rigid spread admits only the translations and the kernel homologies as automorphisms. Since most constructions of translation planes utilize a certain automorphism group examples of rigid spreads are very rare, but cf. \textit{W. M. Kantor} [SIAM J. Algebraic Discrete Methods 3, 308-318 (1982; Zbl 0535.51003)] for some finite ones. The author constructs rigid topological spreads of the real projective 3- space by crosswise tacking together two topological spreads of this space along a common regulus. This process works since the complement of each regulus in real projective 3-space has exactly two connected components. The author uses arguments from projective differential geometry to show that the spreads constructed by him are really rigid.