Compact Polygons
Abstract
Description
We develop the basic topological properties of compact polygons, i.e. of compact topological Tits buildings of rank two. It is proved that the Coxeter diagram of such a building is always crystallographic, that is, compact connected n-gons exist only for n=3,4,6. We classify compact polygons which admit a transitive group action, showing that such a polygon is Moufang and thus related to a real Lie group of rank 2.