Quadrangles of Type F4

This chapter proves various results about Moufang quadrangles. It first considers the notions of a proper involutory set, a proper indifferent set, and a proper anisotropic pseudo-quadratic space. It then shows that the root group sequence Ω‎ is isomorphic to a root group sequence of exactly one of six types relating to some proper involutory set, some non-trivial anisotropic quadratic space, some proper indifferent set, some proper anisotropic pseudo-quadratic space, and some quadratic space. It also describes the degree of a finite purely inseparable field extension as a power of the characteristic, an isomorphism from a root group sequence of Δ‎ to the Moufang quadrangle, and abelian and non-abelian groups.

This chapter deals with the residues of a Bruhat-Tits building whose building at infinity is an exceptional quadrangle. It begins with the remark that if Λ‎ is an arbitrary quadratic space of type Eℓ for ℓ = 6, 7 or 8 or of typeF₄ over a field K that is complete with respect to a discrete valuation, and if in the F4-case the subfield F is closed with respect to this valuation and if Δ‎ is the corresponding Moufang quadrangle of type Eℓ or F₄, then there always exists a unique affine building Ξ‎ such that Δ‎ is the building at infinity of Ξ‎ with respect to its complete system of apartments. The chapter also considers the standard embedding of the apartment A in the Euclidean plane which takes the intersection of A and R to the set of eight triangles containing the origin. Finally, it describes a Moufang polygon with two root group sequences.

This chapter presents various results about quadratic forms over a field complete with respect to a discrete valuation. The discussion is based on the assumption that K is a field of arbitrary characteristic which is complete with respect to a discrete valuation ν‎ and uses the usual convention that ν‎(0) = infinity. The chapter starts with a notation regarding the ring of integers of K and the natural map from it to the residue field, followed by a number of propositions regarding an anisotropic quadratic space. These include an anisotropic quadratic space with residual quadratic spaces, an unramified quadratic space of finite dimension, unramified finite-dimensional anisotropic quadratic forms over K, unramified anisotropic quadratic forms and a bilinear form, and a round quadratic space over K. The chapter concludes with a theorem that there exists an anisotropic quadratic form over K, unique up to isometry, and is non-singular.

Departing from a Moufang set related to a polarity in an exceptional Moufang quadrangle of type F_4, we construct a rank three geometry. The main property of this new geometry is that its automorphism group is iden- tical to the one of the underlying Moufang set, providing a tool to study this Moufang set in a geometrical way. As a corollary we obtain that every automorphism of an exceptional Moufang quadrangle of type F_4 stabilizing the absolute points of a polarity, also centralizes the polarity. This handles the final case of a similar result for all polarities of Moufang n-gons with n ≥ 3.

We show that every Moufang quadrangle of type E6 or E7 defined over a field complete with respect to a discrete valuation is the building at infinity of an affine building.