Symmetric $(15,8,4)$-designs in terms of the geometry of binary simplex codes of dimension $4$

Abstract

Let $n=2^k-1$ and $m=2^{k-2}$ for a certain $k\ge 3$. Consider the point-line geometry of $2m$-element subsets of an $n$-element set. Maximal singular subspaces of this geometry correspond to binary simplex codes of dimension $k$. For $k\ge 4$ the associated collinearity graph contains maximal cliques different from maximal singular subspaces. We investigate maximal cliques corresponding to symmetric $(n,2m,m)$-designs. The main results concern the case $k=4$ and give a geometric interpretation of the five well-known symmetric $(15,8,4)$-designs.