A Classification of the flag-transitive $2$-$(v,k,2)$ designs

Abstract

In this paper, we provide a complete classification of $2$-$(v,k,2)$ design admitting a flag-transitive automorphism group of affine type with the only exception of the semilinear $1$-dimensional group. Alongside this analysis we provide a construction of seven new families of such flag-transitive $2$-designs, two of them infinite, and some of them involve remarkable objects such as $t$-spreads, translation planes, quadrics and Segre varieties. Our result together with those Alavi et al. [1,2], Praeger et al. [15], Zhou and the first author [37,38] provides a complete classification of $2$-$(v,k,2)$ design admitting a flag-transitive automorphism group with the only exception of the semilinear $1$-dimensional case.