A classification of finite locally 2-transitive generalized quadrangles

Ostrom and Wagner (1959) proved that if the automorphism group G of a finite projective plane π acts 2-transitively on the points of π, then π is isomorphic to the Desarguesian projective plane and G is isomorphic to PΓL(3, q) (for some prime-power q). In the more general case of a finite rank 2 irreducible spherical building, also known as a generalized polygon, the theorem of Fong and Seitz (1973) gave a classification of the Moufang examples. A conjecture of Kantor, made in print in 1991, says that there are only two non-classical examples of flag-transitive generalized quadrangles up to duality. Recently, the authors made progress toward this conjecture by classifying those finite generalized quadrangles which have an automorphism group G acting transitively on antiflags. In this paper, we take this classification much further by weakening the hypothesis to G being transitive on ordered pairs of collinear points and ordered pairs of concurrent lines.