Géométrie du plan projectif des octaves de Cayley. (The geometry of the projective plane over the octaves of Cayley) (Q1822353)

This paper deals with some aspects of the projective plane \(P_ 2(0)\) over the (Cayley) octaves \((=octonions)\) over the reals. First, the representation of points of \(P_ 2(0)\) by Hermitian \(3\times 3\)-matrices [cf. \textit{H. Freudenthal}, Geom. Dedicata 19, 7-63 (1985; Zbl 0573.51004)] is used to introduce a kind of homogeneous coordinates on the line with the help of the fibration of \(S^{15}\) with basis \(S^ 8\) and fiber \(S^ 7\). Next, the curvature tensor of \(P_ 2(0)\) as a symmetric space is explicitly computed. For this, one needs a table of Lie products in the Lie algebra \(F_ 4\), which is determined here too. Finally, the authors exhibit a skew-symmetric 8-form invariant under the holonomy group Spin(9) as the analog of the Kähler form on \(P_ 2({\mathbb{C}})\) and the fundamental 4-form on \(P_ 2({\mathbb{H}})\).