A remark on non-uniform hyperplanes of finite thick dual polar spaces (Q5949037)

Let \(\Delta\) be the point-line geometry arising from a finite thick dual polar space. Then \(\Delta\) is a near hexagon with quads. Let \(H\) be a geometric hyperplane of \(\Delta\). The intersection of \(H\) with any quad not contained in \(H\) is either the perp of a point in \(Q\), or a full subquadrangle, or an ovoid of \(Q\). If only one of these possibilities occurs for all quads \(Q\), then \(H\) is called uniform. Uniform hyperplanes have almost completely been classified by \textit{A. Pasini} and \textit{S. Shpectorov} for rank 3 dual polar spaces [see J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 94, No. 2, 276-288 (2001; Zbl 0989.51008)]. In the note under review, the author shows that for every non-uniform hyperplane there exists a quad \(Q\) meeting \(H\) in the perp of a point of \(Q\). A moment's thought reveals that this is not too hard a problem, since the non-uniformity implies that one may assume that there are both subquadrangular and ovoidal intersections with quads. But not too many classical quadrangles admit both substructures as hyperplanes, and so the problem is reduced to classical dual polar spaces with quads isomorphic to the orthogonal classical quadrangle \(Q(4,q)\). Some clever counting and reduction results lead first to the conclusion \(q=2\) (assuming there are no perp intersections with quads), from which the main result follows, again essentially by counting. This is a nice lemma in view of a possible classification programme of (some class of) hyperplanes of finite dual polar spaces. But I hope not all other lemmas of that programme will appear as separate papers.