English

Opposition diagrams for automorphisms of small spherical buildings

Combinatorics 2019-06-05 v2

Abstract

An automorphism θ\theta of a spherical building Δ\Delta is called \textit{capped} if it satisfies the following property: if there exist both type J1J_1 and J2J_2 simplices of Δ\Delta mapped onto opposite simplices by θ\theta then there exists a type J1J2J_1\cup J_2 simplex of Δ\Delta mapped onto an opposite simplex by θ\theta. In previous work we showed that if Δ\Delta is a thick irreducible spherical building of rank at least 33 with no Fano plane residues then every automorphism of Δ\Delta is capped. In the present work we consider the spherical buildings with Fano plane residues (the \textit{small buildings}). We show that uncapped automorphisms exist in these buildings and develop an enhanced notion of "opposition diagrams" to capture the structure of these automorphisms. Moreover we provide applications to the theory of "domesticity" in spherical buildings, including the complete classification of domestic automorphisms of small buildings of types F4\mathsf{F}_4 and E6\mathsf{E}_6.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1803.09367,
  title  = {Opposition diagrams for automorphisms of small spherical buildings},
  author = {J. Parkinson and H. Van Maldeghem},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.09367},
  year   = {2019}
}