Nonassociativity of the Norton algebras of some distance regular graphs (Q2213802)

Summary: A Norton algebra is an eigenspace of a distance regular graph endowed with a commutative nonassociative product called the Norton product, which is defined as the projection of the entrywise product onto this eigenspace. The Norton algebras are useful in finite group theory as they have interesting automorphism groups. We provide a precise quantitative measurement for the nonassociativity of the Norton product on the eigenspace of the second largest eigenvalue of the Johnson graphs, Grassman graphs, Hamming graphs, and dual polar graphs, based on the formulas for this product established in previous work of \textit{F. Levstein} et al. [Eur. J. Comb. 27, No. 1, 1--10 (2006; Zbl 1078.05091)]. Our result shows that this product is as nonassociative as possible except for two cases, one being the trivial vanishing case while the other having connections with the integer sequence A000975 on OEIS and the so-called double minus operation studied recently by \textit{J. Huang} et al. [J. Integer Seq. 20, No. 10, Article 17.10.3, 11 p. (2017; Zbl 1384.05026)].