Lie algebras and 3-transpositions (Q1945878)

The authors give and investigate a construction of an algebra over the field \(F_2\) of order 2 starting from a conjugacy class of 3-transpositions in a group. Let \(G\) be a group and \(D\) a conjugacy class of involutions, generating the group \(G\), such that for all \(d,e \in D\) the order of the product \(de\) equals to 1, 2 or 3. Then \(D\) is called a class of 3-transpositions in \(G\). For a class \(D\) of 3-transpositions in a group \(G\), the Fischer space \(\Pi (D)\) is defined as the partial linear space with \(D\) as point set and the triples of points of the form \((d, e, e^d = d^e)\) as the lines, where \(d, e \in D\) are non-commuting elements. So the three 3-transpositions on a line generate a subgroup isomorphic to \(\mathrm{Sym}_3\), and vice versa, every subgroup isomorphic to \(\mathrm{Sym}_3\) containing involutions from \(D\) connected with some line in \(\Pi(G)\). By \(F_2D\) is denoted the \(F_2\) vector space on the set of finite subsets of \(D\), where addition of two sets is defined by the symmetric difference. Let \(\mathcal A (D)\) be the algebra on \(F_2D\), whose multiplication is the linear expansion of the multiplication \(\ast\), defined for \(d, e \in D\) as follows: \(d \ast e := d + e + f\) if \((d, e, f )\) is a line and equals to 0 otherwise. So if the elements d and e commute, then \(d \ast e = 0\) and if d and e do not commute then \(d \ast e\) is the line that passes through these elements. The group \(G\) acts on \(D\) by conjugation and it preserves lines. Hence it induces a group of automorphisms of both the Fischer space \(\Pi(D)\) and the algebra \(A(D)\) The authors mainly consider the case where the algebra \(A(D)\) is a Lie algebra. It is proved that \(A(D)\) is a Lie algebra if and only if the affine planes of the Fischer space are vanishing sets. As the main result of this paper the authors determine which simple Lie algebras arise by this construction. Among other results, such construction yields a natural embedding of the sporadic simple group \(Fi_22\) in the group \(^2 E_6(2)\).