A geometric construction of the Steiner system \(S(4,7,23)\) (Q1193715)

The authors give another construction of the (unique) Mathieu design \(M_{23}\) i.e. the Steiner system \(S(4,7,23)\). This construction relies on the geometry of PG(3,2). Starting with a set \(S\) with 8 elements the authors construct a collection \(D\) of 15 distinct Steiner systems \(S(3,4,8)\) on this set \(S\). They prove that the 15 elements of \(D\) can be regarded as the 15 points of a PG(3,2). This yield the construction of the design \(S(4,7,23)\). The points of this design are the elements of \(D\) (the geometric points) on the one hand and the 8 elements of \(S\) on the other hand (the distinguished points). Blocks are of 3 types. The first type consists of the 15 planes of PG(3,2). The second type consists of 70 sets (referred to as line sets), each such line set contains 4 distinguished points and 3 geometric points. Note that if \(B\) is a block of one of the designs in \(D\) it is a block of exactly 3 of them. This implies that each of the 70 line sets can be constructed by taking the 70 blocks of the 15 Steiner systems \(S(3,4,8)\) in \(D\), the 4 distinguished points are the elements of \(S\) on this block, while the 3 geometric points are the 3 Steiner systems in \(D\) containing this block. The third type of block is a so-called extended ovoid set. It consists of 5 geometric points and 2 distinguished points. The 5 geometric points consist of a basis of PG(3,2) together with the sum of the 4 basis elements. The 2 distinguished points are uniquely defined by the choice of the 5 geometric points by the property that none of the 5 points occur together with the 2 distinguished points in a line set. The 168 bases of PG (3,2) define the complete set of blocks of type 3. The incidence relation for the design is the natural incidence relation. Although this construction is not at all uniform on points and blocks, the proof is only a matter of checking the properties for the design. Using the above description the authors construct an extension of \(M_{23}\) to \(M_{24}\).