Calculating the Dimension of the Universal Embedding of the Symplectic Dual Polar Space using Languages

Abstract

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 $\mathcal{N}^n$ 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 $V$.