Virtual motives for synthetic geometries, a. definition and properties of \(K_0(\mathcal{Q}_\ell)\) (Q6966547)

This paper introduces the first basics on Grothendieck rings for incidence geometries as a new motivic way to study synthetic geometry.\N\NThe synopsis of the paper goes as follows.\N\NSection 2 gives a short introduction to Grothendieck rings of varieties.\NSections 3 and 4 introduce some elementary notions in the theory of generalized quadrangles.\NIn Section 5, the version of Zariski topology used in this paper is defined. How primal geometries should look like in the category \(\mathcal{Q}_{l}\) gets closely investigated.\NSection 6, addresses isomorphisms of degenerate subgeometries of generalized quadrangles.\NIn Section 7 trace geometries are introduced and studied, which are local geometries naturally arising in generalized quadrangles.\NIn Section 8, some consequences of the concepts of lines and birationality in the theory of translation generalized quadrangles are investigated.\NSection 9 introduces the notion of product used in this paper, while in Section 10 \(K_{0}( \mathcal{Q}_{l}\) is defined.\NSection 11 defines a natural notion of dimension in generalized quadrangles as well as related geometries, formulating some natural properties and questions.\NSection 12 addresses phenomena arising in \(K_{0}( \mathcal{Q}_{l}) \) when \(l\) is not finite. The discussion started in \S 5 on affine geometries is completed.\NIn Section 13, some ideas regarding base extension and Galois descent are formulated, concentrating on a class of quadrangles which stems from a specified class of algebraic curves.\NAppendix A has a look at decompositions of quadrics in \(K_{0}( \mathcal{V}_{l}) \) for the benefit of the incidence-geometrical-oriented reader.