Locally classical stable planes (Q6907260)

A stable plane \(\mathcal{S}=(S,\mathcal{L})\) is a linear space in which the point set \(S\) and the set \(\mathcal{L}\) of lines carry locally compact topologies of positive dimensions such that the geometric operations of joining two points by a line and of intersecting two lines in a point are continuous on their domains of definition and such that the set of pairs of intersecting lines is open. A locally classical stable plane is one where every point admits a neighborhood which is isomorphic to an open subplane of the classical projective plane of the same dimension.\N\NIn the main result of this paper, a locally classical stable plane \(\mathcal{S}=(S,\mathcal{L})\) is considered such that the set of connected lines is dense in \(\mathcal{L}\). It is shown that \(\mathcal{S}\) is classical if (a) \(\dim S > 2\) and \(S\) is simply connected, or (b) \(\dim S = 2\) and every line in \(\mathcal{L}\) is connected, or (c) the point set \(S\) is homeomorphic either to \(\mathbb{R}^2\) or to the point set \(P_2\mathbb{R}\) of the real projective plane. In particular, every locally classical projective plane is classical.\N\NA key ingredient of the proof of the main theorem is that, if two local homomorphisms agree on some non-empty open set of a connected stable plane, then they are identical, and that the image of a connected line \(L\) under a local homomorphism is contained in a single line. This is used to show that every homomorphism from a dense open subplane of a stable plane \(\mathcal{S}\) to a compact projective plane \(\mathcal{P}\) of the same dimension extends to a (unique) homomorphism from \(\mathcal{S}\) to \(\mathcal{P}\). Another key ingredient is a monodromy type argument which relies on an isotopy theorem for homotopic arcs by \textit{J. Martin} and \textit{D. Rolfsen} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 19, 1290--1292 (1968; Zbl 0179.28102)] in \(n\)-manifolds, \(n\ge 3\), and \textit{C. Polley} [Arch. Math. 19, 553--557 (1968; Zbl 0181.48203)] in \(\mathbb{R}^2\) planes.\N\NFinally, the author provides examples that illustrate that the main theorem may fail if any of the hypotheses is not satisfied. Almost all of these examples are built on the Moulton model.