Calculating the dimension of the universal embedding of the symplectic dual polar space using languages

Carlos Segovia, Monika Winklmeier

Published 2013-12-16, updated 2019-10-31Version 2

The main result of this paper is the construction of a bijection of the set of words in so-called standard order of length $n$ formed by four different letters and the set $\mathbb{N}^n$ of all subspaces of a fixed $n$-dimensional maximal isotropic subspace of the $2n$-dimensional symplectic space $V$ over $\mathbb{F}_2$ which are not maximal in a certain sense. Since the number of different words in standard order is known, this gives an alternative proof for the formula of the dimension of the universal embedding of a symplectic dual polar space $\mathcal G_n$. Along the way, we give formulas for the number of all $n$- and $(n-1)$-dimensional totally isotropic subspaces of $V$.