Fissioned triangular schemes via the cross-ratio (Q5937422)

The paper under review discusses an interesting fission scheme of the triangular (or Johnson) association scheme \(T(n)=J(n,2)\) when \(n=q+1\) for any prime power \(q\). The varieties are taken to be the 2-element subsets of the projective line \(\text{PG} (1,q)\) over the finite field \(F_q\), and the cross-ratio is used to do the fissioning. A key ingredient is the fact that the action of \(\text{PGL} (2,q)\), as linear fractional maps, on the 2-element subsets of \(\text{PG} (1,q)\) is generously transitive. That is, there is an element of \(\text{PGL} (2,q)\) that swaps any pair of 2-element subsets of \(\text{PG} (1,q)\). Using this fact and the cross-ratio, the authors are able to construct a fissioned triangular scheme, denoted by \(\text{FT}(q+1)\), which has \({1 \over 2}(q+1)\) associate classes if \(q\) is odd and \({1 \over 2} q\) classes if \(q\) is even. Explicit formulas for the intersection parameters of this association scheme are developed. The authors point out that when \(q=2^{2f}\geq 16\), there appears to be a nontrivial four-class fusion scheme of \(\text{FT}(q+1)\). In fact, they explicitly describe the four relations on distinct 2-element subsets of \(\text{PG} (1,q)\) which they conjecture will determine an association scheme. Moreover, they observe that, if this is indeed an association scheme, merging three of the four relations will yield a strongly regular graph with the same parameters as one constructed by Brouwer and Wilbrink from a non-degenerate parabolic quadric in \(\text{PG} (4,q)\). It turns out that the above conjecture is true, having recently been proven independently in [\textit{H. Tanaka}, A 4-class subscheme of the association scheme coming from the action of \(\text{PGL}(2,4^f)\), submitted to Eur. J. Comb.] and in [\textit{G. L. Ebert, S. Egner, H. D. L. Hollmann}, and \textit{Q. Xiang}, A four-class association scheme, J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 96, 180-191 (2001)]. In the latter paper the construction was generalized so that a four-class association scheme is obtained from each ovoid in \(\text{PG} (3,q)\). The Tits ovoid and the elliptic quadric determine inequivalent association schemes, but the strongly regular graphs obtained as above are isomorphic to the Brouwer-Wilbrink graph, independent of the ovoid.