Flat weakly Miquelian Laguerre planes are ovoidal (Q1969661)

Miquel's configuration in a Laguerre plane involves eight mutually nonparallel points and six circles. It characterises the Miquelian Laguerre planes, that is, those planes that can be obtained as the geometry of plane sections of an elliptic cone without its apex in 3-dimensional projective space. If some of the points are parallel or even equal, various variations of Miquel's configuration are obtained. Weakly Miquelian Laguerre planes are Laguerre planes that satisfy the following variation \textbf{M2} where the eight points occur in four pairs of parallel points as follows. \textbf{M2} Whenever \(x_i\), \(y_i\), \(i\in\{1,2,3,4\}\), are eight different points with \(x_i\|y_i\), \(i\in\{1,2,3,4\}\), such that each of the sets \(\{x_1,x_2,x_3,x_4\}\), \(\{x_1,x_2,y_3,y_4\}\) and \(\{y_1,y_2,x_3,x_4\}\) is contained in a circle, then there is a circle containing the points \(y_1\), \(y_2\), \(y_3\) and \(y_4\). The author [Arch. Math. 72, 77-80 (1999; Zbl 0927.51007)] gave an elementary and completely geometric proof that every ovoidal Laguerre plane satisfies condition \textbf{M2} by using certain lines and planes in the surrounding 3-dimensional projective space. However, \textbf{M2} can also be interpreted as a degeneration of the bundle theorem. Starting from this observation the author now shows that in flat Laguerre planes \textbf{M2} implies the full bundle theorem so that these Laguerre planes are ovoidal by \textit{J. Kahn} [Math. Z. 175, 219-247 (1980; Zbl 0443.06010)]. It is well known that from each Laguerre plane \({\mathfrak {Lp}}\) one obtains a locally projective linear space \({\mathfrak {Ls}}({\mathfrak {Lp}})\). The bundle theorem for \({\mathfrak {Lp}}\) then becomes a condition on coplanarity of certain four different lines. For convenience the author uses the dual \({\mathfrak {Ls}}^*({\mathfrak {Lp}})\) of \({\mathfrak {Ls}}({\mathfrak {Lp}})\) extended by an additional plane \(E_\infty\). Then condition \textbf{M2} is easily seen to be a special case of the Veblen-Young axiom in \({\mathfrak {Ls}}^*({\mathfrak {Lp}})\) where two points of intersection of lines in the configuration are on the added plane \(E_\infty\). From this restricted version of the Veblen-Young axiom the full axiom is verified by constructing planes and then showing that every line that intersects such a plane in two points is entirely contained in this plane. The author's proof involves the topology of the Laguerre plane and order properties of the real line in an essential way and cannot, for now, be carried over to the general case of non-flat Laguerre planes.