On two nonbuilding but simply connected compact Tits geometries of type C₃

DOI10.2140/IIG.2019.17.221MaRDI QIDQ2331935zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Antonio Pasini

Publication date 31 October 2019

Published in Innovations in Incidence Geometry (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.04832

zbMATH Keywords

diagram geometries, Tits-buildings, flag-transitivity

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Groups with a (BN)-pair; buildings (20E42) Buildings and the geometry of diagrams (51E24)

Abstract: A classification of homogeneous compact Tits geometries of irreducible spherical type, with connected panels and admitting a compact flag-transitive automorphism group acting continuously on the geometry, has been obtained by Kramer and Lytchak (Homogeneous compact geometries, Transform. Groups 19 (2016), 43-58 and Erratum to: Homogeneous compact geometries, Transform. Groups, to appear). According to their main result, all such geometries but two are quotients of buildings. The two exceptions are flat geometries of type C3 and arise from polar actions on the Cayley plane over the division algebra of real octonions. The classification obtained by Kramer and Lytchak does not contain the claim that those two exceptional geometries are simply connected, but this holds true, as proved by Schillewaert and Struyve (On exceptional homogeneous compact geometries of type C3, Groups Geome. Dyn. 11 (2017), 1377-1399). The proof by Schillewaert and Struyve is of topological nature and relies on the main result of Kramer and Lytchak. In this paper we provide a combinatorial proof of that claim, independent of Kramer and Lytchak's result.

Review text

In [Transform. Groups 19, No. 3, 793--852 (2014; Zbl 1309.51003)], \textit{L. Kramer} and \textit{A. Lytchak} obtained a classification of all flag-transitive compact Tits geometries, with connected panels, and of irreducible spherical type. Their result states that all such geometries are appropriate quotients of spherical buildings, except for exactly two examples (not surprisingly related to the real octonions). They did not mention whether these two examples are simply connected themselves, but if they are not, then from the above mentioned classification follows that no cover is flag-transitive and compact with connected panels. This provides a strategy to show that these two examples are simply connected: just show that their universal covers are flag-transitive and compact with connected panels. \textit{J. Schillewaert} and \textit{K. Struyve} accomplished this in [Groups Geom. Dyn. 11, No. 4, 1377--1399 (2017; Zbl 1385.51006)]. The present paper proves the simple connectivity of these two examples in a pure combinatorial way. Even more, the author does not even use the fact that the two examples are not covered by buildings (which he independently proves). The paper not only contains a beautiful proof, it also provides an extensive and nice introduction into the problem, and along the way also many additions to the paper of Schillewaert and Struyve, making many of their implicit result explicit.

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Cites work

• \(C_ 3\) geometries arising from the Klein quadric
• Erratum to: ``Homogeneous compact geometries
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• Homogeneous compact geometries
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• On exceptional homogeneous compact geometries of type \(\mathsf{C}_3\)
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Cited in

(3)

• The nonexistence of certain Tits geometries with affine diagram
• Rank three geometry and positive curvature
• On the simple connectedness of certain subsets of buildings

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