The classification of flag-transitive Steiner 4-designs (Q2457935)

This article is part of a big project of the author to classify flag-transitive Steiner \(t\)-designs. The project started with the work of Buekenhout, Delandtsheer, Doyen, Kleidman, Liebeck, and Saxl, who obtained many results on flag-transitive Steiner 2-designs. In [\textit{M. Huber}, Adv. Geom. 5, No.~2, 195--221 (2005; Zbl 1076.51004) and J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 94, No.~1, 180--190 (2001; Zbl 0980.05014)], the author completely classified all flag-transitive Steiner 3-designs using the classification of the finite doubly transitive permutation groups, which in turn relies on the classification of the finite simple groups. This article gives the complete classification of the flag-transitive Steiner 4-designs. They are either the Witt 4-\((11,5,1)\) design on which the Mathieu group \(M_{11}\) is acting, or the Witt 4-\((23,7,1)\) design on which the Mathieu group \(M_{23}\) is acting. In [\textit{M. Huber}, J. Algebr. Comb. 26, No.~4, 453--476 (2007; Zbl 1130.51002), reviewed below], the author presents the complete classification of all flag-transitive Steiner 5-designs and proves that there are no non-trivial flag-transitive Steiner 6-designs. The flag-transitive Steiner 5-designs are either the Witt 5-\((12,6,1)\) design on which the Mathieu group \(M_{12}\) is acting, or the Witt 5-\((24,8,1)\) design on which the group \(\text{PSL}(2,23)\) or the Mathieu group \(M_{24}\) is acting. There he also summarizes the complete determination of all non-trivial Steiner \(t\)-designs with \(t\geq 3\) admitting a flag-transitive group of automorphisms.