Collineation

In projective geometry, a collineation is a one-to-one and onto map (a bijection) from one projective space to another, or from a projective space to itself, such that the of collinear points are themselves collinear. A collineation is thus an isomorphism between projective spaces, or an automorphism from a projective space to itself. Some authors restrict the definition of collineation to the case where it is an automorphism. The set of all collineations of a space to itself form a group, called the collineation group. Simply, a collineation is a one-to-one map from one projective space to another, or from a projective space to itself, such that the images of collinear points are themselves collinear. One may formalize this using various ways of presenting a projective space. Also, the case of the projective line is special, and hence generally treated differently. For a projective space defined in terms of linear algebra (as the projectivization of a vector space), a collineation is a map between the projective spaces that is order-preserving with respect to inclusion of subspaces. Formally, let V be a vector space over a field K and W a vector space over a field L. Consider the projective spaces PG(V) and PG(W), consisting of the vector lines of V and W. Call D(V) and D(W) the set of subspaces of V and W respectively. A collineation from PG(V) to PG(W) is a map α : D(V) → D(W), such that: α is a bijection. A ⊆ B ⇔ α(A) ⊆ α(B) for all A, B in D(V). Given a projective space defined axiomatically in terms of an incidence structure (a set of points P, lines L, and an incidence relation I specifying which points lie on which lines, satisfying certain axioms), a collineation between projective spaces thus defined then being a bijective function f between the sets of points and a bijective function g between the set of lines, preserving the incidence relation.