Die Oktavenebene als Translationsebene mit großer Kollineationsgruppe. (The Cayley plane as a translation plane with a large collineation group) (Q582572)

In the study of topological planes a major problem is the classification of compact projective planes. This article gives a proof of one major step in the solution of this problem. Let \({\mathbb{O}}\) be the algebras of (real) Cayley numbers, and let \(\Pi\) be the plane over \({\mathbb{O}}\). The author proves that \(\Pi\) is the unique 16-dimensional locally compact topological translation plane possessing a collineation group of dimension at least 41. The proof, which is broken down into cases based on the possible structures of the collineation group, actually shows that a 16- dimensional locally compact translation plane not isomorphic to \({\mathbb{O}}\) must have a collineation group of dimension at most 40. Examples of such planes are known [see the author, Math. Z. 149, 203-225 (1976; Zbl 0316.20032)]. H. Salzmann uses the above theorem to characterize the plane \({\mathbb{O}}\) among general compact projective planes by the size of the collineation plane.