Automorphisms of non-spherical buildings have unbounded displacement (Q447754)

Let \(X\) be a thick building, and \(\phi\) be a (not necessarily type-preserving) nontrivial automorphism of \(X\). If \(X\) is a Euclidean building, then it is easy to prove, by geometrical methods, that there is no bound to the distance that \(\phi\) moves a point. The goal of this paper is to generalize this result to any \(X\), as long as it does not have a spherical component. As a consequence, a cobounded group of automorphisms of \(X\) has trivial center. Although the authors mention a possible geometric proof, they only use combinatorics of Coxeter groups and buildings. They also study the case of spherical buildings, in which the question has to be reformulated: one can ask if the displacement of \(\phi\) can be maximized, or in other words, if there exists a chamber \(C\) which is sent to an opposite chamber. There is a counterexample (by Hendrik Van Maldeghem) to this naive question. These kind of automorphisms were called later on domestic and studied in a subsequent series of papers (see for example [\textit{B. Temmermans} et al., Ann. Comb. 16, No. 4, 905--916 (2012; Zbl 1259.51004)]).