English

A classification of finite locally 2-transitive generalized quadrangles

Group Theory 2020-06-30 v2 Combinatorics

Abstract

Ostrom and Wagner (1959) proved that if the automorphism group GG of a finite projective plane π\pi acts 22-transitively on the points of π\pi, then π\pi is isomorphic to the Desarguesian projective plane and GG is isomorphic to PΓL(3,q)\mathrm{P\Gamma L}(3,q) (for some prime-power qq). In the more general case of a finite rank 22 irreducible spherical building, also known as a \emph{generalized polygon}, the theorem of Fong and Seitz (1973) gave a classification of the \emph{Moufang} examples. A conjecture of Kantor, made in print in 1991, says that there are only two non-classical examples of flag-transitive generalized quadrangles up to duality. Recently, the authors made progress toward this conjecture by classifying those finite generalized quadrangles which have an automorphism group GG acting transitively on antiflags. In this paper, we take this classification much further by weakening the hypothesis to GG being transitive on ordered pairs of collinear points and ordered pairs of concurrent lines.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1903.07442,
  title  = {A classification of finite locally 2-transitive generalized quadrangles},
  author = {John Bamberg and Cai Heng Li and Eric Swartz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.07442},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

Sections 3-6 rewritten and restructured to fill in gaps in, streamline, and avoid repetition of arguments. To appear in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society