Automorphisms and opposition in twin buildings

We show that every automorphism of a thick twin building interchanging the halves of the building maps some residue to an opposite one. Furthermore we show that no automorphism of a locally finite 2-spherical twin building of rank at least 3 maps every residue of one fixed type to an opposite. The main ingredient of the proof is a lemma that states that every duality of a thick finite projective plane admits an absolute point, i.e., a point mapped onto an incident line. Our results also hold for all finite irreducible spherical buildings of rank at least 3, and as a consequence we deduce that every involution of a thick irreducible finite spherical building of rank at least 3 has a fixed residue

Symplectic polarities of buildings of type E₆

A symplectic polarity of a building Delta of type E (6) is a polarity whose fixed point structure is a building of type F (4) containing residues isomorphic to symplectic polar spaces. In this paper, we present two characterizations of such polarities among all dualities. Firstly, we prove that, if a duality theta of Delta never maps a point to a neighbouring symp, and maps some element to a non-opposite element, then theta is a symplectic duality. Secondly, we show that, if a duality theta never maps a chamber to an opposite chamber, then it is a symplectic polarity. The latter completes the programme for dualities of buildings of type E (6) of determining all domestic automorphisms of spherical buildings, and it also shows that symplectic polarities are the only polarities in buildings of type E (6) for which the Phan geometry is empty

Domesticity in generalized quadrangles

An automorphism of a generalized quadrangle is called domestic if it maps no chamber, which is here an incident point-line pair, to an opposite chamber. We call it point-domestic if it maps no point to an opposite one and line-domestic if it maps no line to an opposite one. It is clear that a duality in a generalized quadrangle is always point-domestic and linedomestic. In this paper, we classify all domestic automorphisms of generalized quadrangles. Besides three exceptional cases occurring in the small quadrangles with orders (2, 2), (2, 4), and (3, 5), all domestic collineations are either point-domestic or line-domestic. Up to duality, they fall into one of three classes: Either they are central collineations, or they fix an ovoid, or they fix a large full subquadrangle. Remarkably, the three exceptional domestic collineatons in the small quadrangles mentioned above all have order 4

Opposition diagrams for automorphisms of small spherical buildings

An automorphism $\theta$ of a spherical building $\Delta$ is called \textit{capped} if it satisfies the following property: if there exist both type $J_1$ and $J_2$ simplices of $\Delta$ mapped onto opposite simplices by $\theta$ then there exists a type $J_1\cup J_2$ simplex of $\Delta$ mapped onto an opposite simplex by $\theta$. In previous work we showed that if $\Delta$ is a thick irreducible spherical building of rank at least $3$ with no Fano plane residues then every automorphism of $\Delta$ 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 $\mathsf{F}_4$ and $\mathsf{E}_6$

Opposition diagrams for automorphisms of large spherical buildings

Let $\theta$ be an automorphism of a thick irreducible spherical building $\Delta$ of rank at least $3$ with no Fano plane residues. We prove that if there exist both type $J_1$ and $J_2$ simplices of $\Delta$ mapped onto opposite simplices by $\theta$, then there exists a type $J_1\cup J_2$ simplex of $\Delta$ mapped onto an opposite simplex by $\theta$. This property is called "cappedness". We give applications of cappedness to opposition diagrams, domesticity, and the calculation of displacement in spherical buildings. In a companion piece to this paper we study the thick irreducible spherical buildings containing Fano plane residues. In these buildings automorphisms are not necessarily capped

The combinatorics of automorphisms and opposition in generalised polygons

We investigate the combinatorial interplay between automorphisms and opposition in (primarily finite) generalised polygons. We provide restrictions on the fixed element structures of automorphisms of a generalised polygon mapping no chamber to an opposite chamber. Furthermore, we give a complete classification of automorphisms of finite generalised polygons which map at least one point and at least one line to an opposite, but map no chamber to an opposite chamber. Finally, we show that no automorphism of a finite thick generalised polygon maps all chambers to opposite chambers, except possibly in the case of generalised quadrangles with coprime parameters

Collineations of polar spaces with restricted displacements

Let J be a set of types of subspaces of a polar space. A collineation (which is a type-preserving automorphism) of a polar space is called J-domestic if it maps no flag of type J to an opposite one. In this paper we investigate certain J-domestic collineations of polar spaces. We describe in detail the fixed point structures of collineations that are i-domestic and at the same time (i + 1)-domestic, for all suitable types i. We also show that {point, line}-domestic collineations are either point-domestic or line-domestic, and then we nail down the structure of the fixed elements of point-domestic collineations and of line-domestic collineations. We also show that {i, i + 1}-domestic collineations are either i-domestic or (i + 1)-domestic (under the assumption that i + 1 is not the type of the maximal subspaces if i is even). For polar spaces of rank 3, we obtain a full classification of all chamber-domestic collineations. All our results hold in the general case (finite or infinite) and generalize the full classification of all domestic collineations of polar spaces of rank 2 performed in Temmermans et al. (to appear in Ann Comb)