Strongly transitive multiple trees. (Q438601)

Multiple trees were introduced by \textit{M. Ronan} [J. Algebra 271, No. 2, 673-697 (2004; Zbl 1144.20307)] as generalizations of twin trees in order to capture the geometry of \(\mathrm{GL}_2(A)\) where \(A\) is a ring of rational functions on the projective line having poles at a given set of rational points. The author [Pure Appl. Math. Q. 7, No. 3, 1037-1052 (2011; Zbl 1232.51009)] used model-theoretic techniques to construct generalized \(n\)-gons whose automorphism groups are strongly transitive, and by taking ultraproducts of the polygons obtained strongly transitive twin trees (but not proper multiple trees). In the paper under review the author gives a different construction for multiple trees. She works in the class \(\mathcal K_n\) of \(n\)-tuples of nonempty finite trees with a suitable codistance function. The main step is to show that \(\mathcal K_n\) has the amalgamation property. Then the Fraïssé limit \(M_n\) of \(\mathcal K_n\) is shown to be a strongly transitive multiple tree, that is, the automorphism group \(\Aut(M_n)\) of \(M_n\) is transitive on the set of marked apartments, or equivalently, \(\Aut(M_n)\) has a BN-pair. Furthermore, \(\Aut(M_n)\) does not satisfy the Moufang condition. The construction in fact shows that any partial codistance function on a tuple of finite trees can be extended to yield strongly transitive multiple trees.