EMBEDDINGS OF COMPLEX LINE SYSTEMS AND FINITE REFLECTION GROUPS

Abstract

AbstractA star is a planar set of three lines through a common point in which the angle between each pair is 60∘. A set of lines through a point in which the angle between each pair of lines is 60 or 90∘ is star-closed if for every pair of its lines at 60∘ the set contains the third line of the star. In 1976 Cameron, Goethals, Seidel and Shult showed that the indecomposable star-closed sets in Euclidean space are the root systems of types An, Dn, E6, E7 and E8. This result was a key part of their determination of all graphs with least eigenvalue −2. Subsequently, Cvetković, Rowlinson and Simić determined all star-closed extensions of these line systems. We generalize this result on extensions of line systems to complex n-space equipped with a hermitian inner product. There is one further infinite family, and two exceptional types arising from Burkhardt and Mitchell’s complex reflection groups in dimensions five and six. The proof is a geometric version of Mitchell’s classification of complex reflection groups in dimensions greater than four.