A characteristic property of elliptic Plücker transformations (Q678193)

A \(3\)-dimensional projective space \(({\mathcal P},{\mathcal L})\) together with an elliptic absolute polarity \(\pi\) is called a classical elliptic space if the coordinatizing field is commutative of characteristic different from \(2\), the polarity is a projective one, and there exist Clifford parallel lines \(a,b\) such that \(b\notin\{a,a^\pi\}\). For lines \(a,b\) in an elliptic \(3\)-space, write \(a\sim b\) if \(a\) and \(b\) coincide or intersect orthogonally; such pairs of lines are called related. A Plücker transformation of the elliptic space is a permutation \(\varphi\) of \(\mathcal L\) such that \(a\sim b\iff a^\varphi\sim b^\varphi\). In the paper under review, it is shown that, for a classical elliptic space, every bijection of \(\mathcal L\) satisfying \(a\sim b\Rightarrow a^\varphi\sim b^\varphi\) is a Plücker transformation. If, moreover, all endomorphisms of the coordinatizing field are automorphisms then every injection \(\varphi\) of \(\mathcal L\) such that \(a\sim b\Rightarrow a^\varphi\sim b^\varphi\) is a Plücker transformation. The 3-dimensional case is much harder than the case of generalized elliptic spaces of dimension \(d=2\) or \(d\geq4\), which was treated by the author in a previous paper [\textit{H. Havlicek}, Rend. Mat. Appl., VII. Ser. 15, No. 1, 39-56 (1995; Zbl 0828.51005)].