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3-nets realizing a diassociative loop in a projective plane

Abstract

A \textit{33-net} of order nn is a finite incidence structure consisting of points and three pairwise disjoint classes of lines, each of size nn, such that every point incident with two lines from distinct classes is incident with exactly one line from each of the three classes. The current interest around 33-nets (embedded) in a projective plane PG(2,K)PG(2,K), defined over a field KK of characteristic pp, arose from algebraic geometry. It is not difficult to find 33-nets in PG(2,K)PG(2,K) as far as 0<pn0<p\le n. However, only a few infinite families of 33-nets in PG(2,K)PG(2,K) are known to exist whenever p=0p=0, or p>np>n. Under this condition, the known families are characterized as the only 33-nets in PG(2,K)PG(2,K) which can be coordinatized by a group. In this paper we deal with 33-nets in PG(2,K)PG(2,K) which can be coordinatized by a diassociative loop GG but not by a group. We prove two structural theorems on GG. As a corollary, if GG is commutative then every non-trivial element of GG has the same order, and GG has exponent 22 or 33. We also discuss the existence problem for such 33-nets

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