A locally polar geometry associated with the group HS (Q5899758)

The author constructs a locally polar rank three geometry (Gamma) with 1100 points, 154000 lines and 11200 circles. Each point residue is the unique generalized quadrangle with order (9,3). Each circle residue is the geometry of vertices and edges of the complete graph on 11 vertices, and each line residue is a generalized 2-gon. The group G of automorphisms of the Higman-Sims graph on 100 points acts flat- transitively on (Gamma). In fact there are two constructions of (Gamma): the first is group-theoretic, and the second is more geometric, using a concrete representation of the Higman-Sims graph inside the Leech lattice. Not surprisingly, both constructions are rather technical. The flag-transitive locally polar geometries of rank 3 with classical, thick point residues are classified by \textit{A. Del Fra}, \textit{D. Ghinelli}, \textit{T. Meixner} and \textit{A. Pasini}, Flag-transitive extensions of C(sub n) geometries, Geom. Dedicata (to appear), except for the case in which the point residues are isomorphic to the generalized quadrangle of order (9,3), i.e., the case considered here, which is completely settled by \textit{R. Weiss} and the author in `A geometric characterization of the groups HS and Suz', to appear in J. Algebra.