Surjections on Grassmannians preserving pairs of elements with bounded distance (Q2267403)

Let \(V\) be a left vector space over a division ring \(D\). For each integer \(m>0\) define \(\mathcal{G}_{m}(V)\) to be the Grassmannian consisting of all \(m\)-dimensional subspaces of \(V\) with \(1<m<\dim V\), and define a distance \(d\) on \(\mathcal{G}_{m}(V)\) by \(d(A,B):=m-\dim(A\cap B)\). When \(n:=\dim V\) is finite, a theorem of \textit{W. L. Chow} [Ann. Math. (2) 50, 32--67 (1949; Zbl 0040.22901)] characterizes the bijections \(T\) of \(\mathcal{G}_{m}(V)\) onto itself with the property \[ d(A,B)=1~\iff~d(T(A),T(B))=1\text{ for all }A,B\in\mathcal{G}_{m}(V).\tag{\(*\)} \] Such a bijection is either induced by a semilinear isomorphism of \(V\) onto itself or induced by a semilinear isomorphism of \(V\) onto its dual (\(n=2m\) in the latter case). The present author proves the following. Let \(V\) and \(V^{\prime}\) be left vector spaces over division rings \(D\) and \(D^{\prime}\), respectively. Let \(m>k>0\) and assume that \(\dim V\geq m+k+1\). If \(T\) is a surjection of \(\mathcal{G}_{m}(V)\) onto \(\mathcal{G}_{m^{\prime}}(V^{\prime})\) such that \(d(A,B)\leq k\) \(\iff\) \(d(T(A),T(B))\leq k\) for all \(A,B\in \mathcal{G}_{m}(V)\), then \(T\) is a bijection and (\(*\)) holds. This generalizes results of \textit{A. Blunck} and \textit{H. Havlicek} [Discrete Math. 301, No.~1, 46--56 (2005; Zbl 1083.51001)] and of \textit{H. Havlicek} and \textit{M. Pankov} [Demonstr. Math. 38, No.~3, 675--688 (2005; Zbl 1089.51004)].