Solvable block transitive automorphism groups of 2-(\(v\), 5, 1) designs (Q1861269)

The article's focus is on a very specific class of \(2\)-designs: 2-\((v,5,1)\) designs with a solvable block transitive automorphism group that is not flag-transitive. As all block-transitive 2-\((v,k,1)\) designs with block size \(k<5\) have already been classified, and all flag-transitive 2-\((v,k,1)\) designs have also been determined, the designs considered in this paper are the next natural candidates for classification. In their main result, the authors show that if \(G\) is a solvable block-transitive automorphism group of a 2-\((v,5,1)\) design that is not flag-transitive and acts imprimitively on the points of the design, then \(v=21\) and \(G\) is a subgroup of the semidirect extension of \(Z_{21}\) by \(Z_6\). If \(G\) is point-primitive, then \( v = p^a \), where \(p\) is a prime congruent to \(21\) modulo \(40\) and \(a\) is odd, and \( G \leq A \Gamma L(1,v) \). Although the authors do not know of any point-primitive examples satisfying these conditions, they conjecture their existence for sufficiently large \(p\)'s. The proof takes advantage of various older results concerning the automorphism groups of block-transitive designs and their subdegrees, and includes the use of intersection matrices for the orbits of their vertex-stabilizers.