Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
The group of the title is one of the classical groups and can be represented—will indeed be represented here—as the group of those projectivities in a certain finite plane that leave invariant the set of zeros of a Hermitian ternary form. Its properties in the large, so to speak, are common knowledge, being particular instances of those of unitary finite groups; the conjugate sets, and sufficient information to determine, or perhaps nearly to determine, the group characters are given in (7). The methods to be used here are elementary; they take advantage of the base field, and consequently the numbers of points in the geometry, being relatively small. Much detailed information emerges that seems worth putting on record; it does not occupy a disproportionate amount of room and might elude the coarser net of an investigation based on generalities.