Extremal elements in Lie algebras, buildings and structurable algebras (Q831274)

Simple Lie algebras with extremal elements lead to root filtration spaces and \textit{A. M. Cohen} and \textit{G. Ivanyos} [Eur. J. Comb. 28, No. 5, 1419--1441 (2007; Zbl 1117.51015)] established a very close connection between root filtration spaces and shadow spaces of buildings. In the paper under review, the authors consider a finite-dimensional simple Lie algebra \(\mathfrak{g}\) generated by its extremal elements over a field of characteristic \(\ne 2\) and its inner ideal geometry, that is, the point-line geometry whose points are the 1-dimensional inner ideals and whose lines are the minimal proper inner ideals containing at least two points. They show that if \(\mathfrak{g}\) contains two commuting and linearly independent extremal elements, then the inner ideal geometry is a root shadow space of a spherical building of rank at least 2. The proof heavily builds on results by \textit{A. M. Cohen} and \textit{G. Ivanyos} [J. Algebra 300, No. 2, 433-454 (2006; Zbl 1109.51006)]. The building is then shown to be Moufang. As a first step it is shown that the point-line geometry of a root filtration space with point set the fixed points of some involutive automorphism \(\sigma\) and lines the symplecta fixed by \(\sigma\) and containing at least two non-collinear fixed points carries the structure of a polar space if \(\sigma\) does not fix a line of the filtration space. However, his polar space may be thin or degenerate. Connecting finite-dimensional simple Lie algebras over fields of characteristic neither 2 nor 3 with structurable algebras, the authors obtain that in case the inner ideal geometry of \(\mathfrak{g}\) contains no lines then the inner ideal geometry forms a Moufang set. On the other hand, those \(\mathfrak{g}\) generated by its extremal elements are characterized as being isomorphic to a symplectic Lie algebra of some non-degenerate symplectic space or being obtained by applying the Tits-Kantor-Koecher construction to a finite-dimensional simple structurable algebra of skew-dimension 1.