A note on embedding and generating dual polar spaces

Generating sets of cardinality 2 n are constructed for the unitary dual polar space DUO2na 1; q 2 U and the elliptic orthogonal dual polar space DO ˇ O2na 2; qU. It is shown that the elliptic dual polar space DO ˇ O2na 2; qU has an embedding into PGO2 n ˇ 1; q 2 U which is necessarily relatively universal. By a theorem of Kasikova and Shult ((9)) we conclude that this embedding is absolutely universal. A survey is included summarizing current knowledge of the generating rank and universal embedding spaces of dual polar spaces.