On maximal closed subsets in association schemes (Q1369736)

It is well known that a group which acts flag transitively on a 2-design with \(\lambda= 1\) must act primitively on the set of points of the design. The purpose of the present note is to show that this result has a natural generalization in scheme theory. Let \((X, G)\) be a scheme. For all \(E\), \(F\subseteq G\) we define \[ EF= \left\{ g\in G \left|\sum_{e\in E} \sum_{f\in F} a_{efg}\right. \neq 0\right\}. \] A nonempty subset \(T\) of \(G\) is called closed if \(TT\subseteq T\). \({\mathcal C}(G)\) denote the set of all closed subsets of \(G\). Theorem. Let \((X, G)\) be a scheme, and let \(K\in{\mathcal C}(G)- \{G\}\) be given. Assume that there exists \(H\in{\mathcal C}(G)- \{G\}\) which satisfies \(KHK= G\) and \(H\cup K= HK\cap KH\). Then \(H\) is maximal.