On primitivity and reduction for half-flag-transitive block designs

Abstract

Let $\mathcal{D} = (\mathcal{P}, \mathcal{B})$ be a $2$-$(v, k, \lambda)$ design, and let $G$ be a half-flag-transitive automorphism group of ${\cal D}$. In this article, we first establish three sufficient conditions for $G$ to be point-primitive: (i) $\lambda \geq (r, 2\lambda)^2$, (ii) $r > 4\lambda(k-2)$, (iii) $(v-1,2k-2)\le2$. Next, we prove that for $\lambda \geq (r, 2\lambda)^2$, the group $G$ is either of affine type, almost simple type, or product type. Finally, we analyze the case where $G$ is of almost simple type and prove that if the socle of $G$ is a sporadic simple group then $G \cong \text{HS}$ and $\cal D$ is either the unique $2$-$(176, 128, 15240)$ design or the unique $2$-$(176, 160, 19080)$ design.