The valuations of the near polygon G\(_{n}\) (Q2380303)

The author classifies the valuations of the near polygon \(\mathbb{G}_n\). A \textit{near polygon} is a point-line incidence geometry such that two points determine at most one line, and for each point \(p\) and line \(L\), there is a unique point on \(L\) nearest to \(p\) in the point collinearity graph. The standard examples are the geometries arising from polar spaces by taking as point set the maximal singular subspaces, and lines the next-to-maximal subspaces, with incidence reverse containment, and these are called \textit{dual polar spaces}. The near polygon \(\mathbb{G}_n\) is a certain subgeometry of the dual polar space arising from the Hermitian variety \(H(2n-1,4)\) over the field of \(4\) elements. A \textit{valuation} on \(\mathbb{G}_n\) is a map from the point set to the nonnegative integers such that (1) some point is mapped onto \(0\), (2) on every line, there is a unique point with smallest value, say \(m\), and all other points on the line have value \(m+1\) (in general there is third condition which is, however, automatically satisfied for the near polygon \(\mathbb{G}_n\)). Valuations describe in a certain sense how a near polygon is isometrically embedded as a subspace in other near polygons. Indeed, one example of a valuation is the distance to a fixed point (a \textit{classical valuation}); if that fixed point lies outside an isometrically fully embedded near polygon, then by subtracting the smallest such distance, we obtain an \textit{induced valuation}, which is not equivalent to any classical valuation. The dual Hermitian near polygons mentioned above only admit classical valuation, showing that they are not isometrically fully embedded in a larger near polygon. In the present paper, the author shows that \(\mathbb{G}_n\) only admits classical valuations and valuations induced by the dual Hermitian near polygon. The proof is mostly geometric, ingenious and beautiful.