This is an expository article detailing results concerning large arcs in finite projective spaces, which attempts to cover the most relevant results on arcs, simplifying and unifying proofs of known old and more recent theorems. The article is mostly self-contained and includes a proof of the most general form of Segre's lemma of tangents and a short proof of the MDS conjecture over prime fields based on this lemma.
The resolutions and maximal sets of compatible resolutions of all 2-(120,8,1) designs arising frommaximal (120,8)-arcs in the known projective planes of order 16 are computed. It is shown that each of these designs is embeddable in a unique way in a projective plane of order 16.
A combinatorial characterization of resolvable Steiner 2-$(v,k,1)$ designs embeddable as maximal arcs in a projective plane of order $(v-k)/(k-1)$ is proved, and a generalization of a conjecture by Andries Brouwer \cite{Br} is formulated.
An $n$ arc in $(k-1)$-dimensional projective space is a set of $n$ points so that no $k$ lie on a hyperplane. In 1988, Glynn gave a formula to count $n$-arcs in the projective plane in terms of simpler combinatorial objects called superfigurations. Several authors have used this formula to count $n$-arcs in the projective plane for $n \le 10$. In this paper, we determine a formula to count $n$-arcs in projective 3-space. We then use this formula to give exact expressions for the number of $n$-arcs in $\mathbb{P}^3(\mathbb{F}_q)$ for $n \le 7$, which are polynomial in $q$ for $n \le 6$ and quas…
In this paper a 2-arc of size 21 in the projective Hjelmslev plane PHG(2,\Z_25) and a 2-arc of size 22 in PHG(2,\F_5[X]/(X^2)) are given. Both arcs are bigger than the 2-arcs previously known in the respective plane. Furthermore, we will give some information on the geometrical structure of the arcs.
An $n$-arc in a projective plane is a collection of $n$ distinct points in the plane, no three of which lie on a line. Formulas counting the number of $n$-arcs in any finite projective plane of order $q$ are known for $n \le 8$. In 1995, Iampolskaia, Skorobogatov, and Sorokin counted $9$-arcs in the projective plane over a finite field of order $q$ and showed that this count is a quasipolynomial function of $q$. We present a formula for the number of $9$-arcs in any projective plane of order $q$, even those that are non-Desarguesian, deriving Iampolskaia, Skorobogatov, and Sorokin's formula as…
It is shown that the maximal size of a $2$-arc in the projective Hjelmslev plane over $\mathbb{Z}_{25}$ is $21$, and the $(21,2)$-arc is unique up to isomorphism. Furthermore, all maximal $(20,2)$-arcs in the affine Hjelmslev plane over $\mathbb{Z}_{25}$ are classified up to isomorphism.
It is known that some good linear codes over a finite ring (R-linear codes) arise from interesting point constellations in certain projective geometries. For example, the expurgated Nordstrom-Robinson code, a nonlinear binary [14,6,6]-code which has higher minimum distance than any linear binary [14,6]-code, can be constructed from a maximal 2-arc in the projective Hjelmslev plane over Z_4.
In this paper we consider binary linear codes spanned by incidence matrices of Steiner 2-designs associated with maximal arcs in projective planes of even order, and their dual codes. Upper and lower bounds on the 2-rank of the incidence matrices are derived. A lower bound on the minimum distance of the dual codes is proved, and it is shown that the bound is achieved if and only if the related maximal arc contains a hyperoval of the plane. The binary linear codes of length 52 spanned by the incidence matrices of 2-$(52,4,1)$ designs associated with previously known and some newly found maximal…
Given any linear code $C$ over a finite field $GF(q)$ we show how $C$ can be described in a transparent and geometrical way by using the associated Bruen-Silverman code. Then, specializing to the case of MDS codes we use our new approach to offer improvements to the main results currently available concerning MDS extensions of linear MDS codes. We also sharply limit the possibilities for constructing long non-linear MDS codes.
A \textit{k}-arc in the projective space ${\rm PG}(n,q)$ is a set of $k$ projective points such that no subcollection of $n+1$ points is contained in a hyperplane. In this paper, we construct new $60$-arcs and $110$-arcs in ${\rm PG}(4,q)$ that do not arise from rational or elliptic curves. We introduce computational methods that, when given a set $\mathcal{P}$ of projective points in the projective space of dimension $n$ over an algebraic number field $\mathcal{Q}(ξ)$, determines a complete list of primes $p$ for which the reduction modulo $p$ of $\mathcal{P}$ to the projective space ${\rm PG…
We introduce and study embeddings of graphs in finite projective planes, and present related results for some families of graphs including complete graphs and complete bipartite graphs. We also make connections between embeddings of graphs and the existence of certain substructures in a plane, such as Baer subplanes and arcs.
The subject of this paper are partial geometries $pg(s,t,α)$ with parameters $s=d(d'-1), \ t=d'(d-1), \ α=(d-1)(d'-1)$, $d, d' \ge 2$. In all known examples, $q=dd'$ is a power of 2 and the partial geometry arises from a maximal arc of degree $d$ or $d'$ in a projective plane of order $q$ via a known construction due to Thas \cite{Thas73} and Wallis \cite{W}, with a single known exception of a partial geometry $pg(4,6,3)$ found by Mathon \cite{Math} that is not associated with a maximal arc in the projective plane of order 8. A parallel class of lines is a set of pairwise disjoint lines that c…
Let $m$ be a positive integer, $q$ be a prime power, and $\mathrm{PG}(2,q)$ be the projective plane over the finite field $\mathbb F_q$. Finding complete $m$-arcs in $\mathrm{PG}(2,q)$ of size less than $q$ is a classical problem in finite geometry. In this paper we give a complete answer to this problem when $q$ is relatively large compared with $m$, explicitly constructing the smallest $m$-arcs in the literature so far for any $m\geq 8$. For any fixed $m$, our arcs $\mathcal A_{q,m}$ satisfy $|\mathcal A_{q,m}|-q\rightarrow -\infty$ as $q$ grows. To produce such $m$-arcs, we develop a Galois…
This paper studies the existence of finite non-Desarguesian flag-transitive projective plane, giving necessary conditions in terms of polynomial equations over finite fields of characteristic $3$. This sheds light on the longstanding conjecture that every finite flag-transitive projective plane is Desarguesian.
This article studies a generalization of magic squares to finite projective planes. In traditional magic squares the entries come from the natural numbers. This does not work for finite projective planes, so we instead use Abelian groups. For each finite projective plane we demonstrate a small group over which the plane can labeled magically. In the prime order case we classify all groups over which the projective plane can be made magic.
We apply an improvement of the Delsarte LP-bound to give a new proof of the non-existence of finite projective planes of order 6, and uniqueness of finite projective planes of order 7. The proof is computer aided, and it is also feasible to apply to higher orders like 8, 9 and, with further improvements, possibly 10 and 12.
In this paper, we prove lower and upper bounds on the achromatic and the pseudoachromatic indices of the $n$-dimensional finite projective space of order $q$.
We study combinatorial parameters of a recently introduced bootstrap percolation problem in finite projective planes. We present sharp results on the size of the minimum percolating sets and the maximal non-percolating sets. Additional results on the minimal and maximal percolation time as well as on the critical probability in the projective plane are also presented.
An arc is a set of vectors of the $k$-dimensional vector space over the finite field with $q$ elements ${\mathbb F}_q$, in which every subset of size $k$ is a basis of the space, i.e. every $k$-subset is a set of linearly independent vectors. Given an arc $G$ in a space of odd characteristic, we prove that there is an upper bound on the largest arc containing $G$. The bound is not an explicit bound but is obtained by computing properties of a matrix constructed from $G$. In some cases we can also determine the largest arc containing $G$, or at least determine the hyperplanes which contain exac…
In \cite{M18}, the first author gave a construction of strongly regular Cayley graphs on the additive group of finite fields by using three-valued Gauss periods. In particular, together with the result in \cite{BLMX}, it was shown that there exists a strongly regular Cayley graph with negative Latin square type parameters $(q^6,r(q^3+1),-q^3+r^2+3r,r^2+r)$, where $r=M(q^2-1)/2$, in the following cases: (i) $M=1$ and $q\equiv 3\,(\mod{4})$; (ii) $M=3$ and $q\equiv 7\,(\mod{24})$; and (iii) $M=7$ and $q\equiv 11,51\,(\mod{56})$. The existence of strongly regular Cayley graphs with the above para…
We prove that there is no d such that all finite projective planes can be represented by convex sets in R^d, answering a question of Alon, Kalai, Matousek, and Meshulam. Here, if P is a projective plane with lines l_1,...,l_n, a representation of P by convex sets in R^d is a collection of convex sets C_1,...,C_n in R^d such that C_{i_1},...,C_{i_k} have a common point if and only if the corresponding lines l_{i_1},...,l_{i_k} have a common point in P. The proof combines a positive-fraction selection lemma of Pach with a result of Alon on "expansion" of finite projective planes. As a corollary,…
A structure $\cal S$ is quasi-projective if for every structure $\cal T$, for every homomorphism $f : {\cal S} \rightarrow {\cal T}$ and every epimorphism $j: {\cal S}\rightarrow {\cal T}$ there is an endomorphism $ϕ$ of $\cal S$ such that $ϕ\circ j=f$. In this paper, we characterise the quasi-projective posets and lattices of arbitrary cardinalities, finite permutations, graphs and digraphs of arbitrary cardinalities with loops and without loops, finite hypergraphs, and finite point-line geometries.
Small complete arcs and caps in Galois spaces over finite fields $\fq$ with characteristic greater than 3 are constructed from cubic curves with an isolated double point. For $m$ a divisor of $q+1$, complete plane arcs of size approximately $q/m$ are obtained, provided that $(m,6)=1$ and $m<\{1}{4}q^{1/4}$. If in addition $m=m_1m_2$ with $(m_1,m_2)=1$, then complete caps of size approximately $\{m_1+m_2}{m}q^{N/2}$ in affine spaces of dimension $N\equiv 0 \pmod 4$ are constructed.
I adapt Berlekamp's light bulb switching game to finite projective plans and finite affine planes, then find the worst arrangement of lit bulbs for planes of even and odd orders. The results are then extended from the planes to spaces of higher dimension.
In this note, we prove that for any finite dimensional vector space $V$ over $\mathbb {C}$, and for a finite cyclic group $G$, the projective variety $\mathbb P(V)/G$ is projectively normal with respect to the descent of $\mathcal O(1)^{\otimes |G|}$ by a method using toric variety, and deduce the EGZ theorem as a consequence.
We study the geometry of point-orbits of elation groups with a given center and axis of a finite projective space. We show that there exists a 1-1 correspondence from conjugacy classes of such groups and orbits on projective subspaces (of a suitable dimension) of Singer groups of projective spaces. Together with a recent result of Drudge we establish the number of these elation groups.
We study Poncelet's Theorem in the four non-isomorphic finite projective planes of order 9. Among these planes, only the Desarguesian plane turns out to be a Poncelet plane, while the other three planes which are constructed over the miniquaternion near-field of order 9, are not. This gives a complete discussion of Poncelet's Theorem in finite projective planes of order 9.
Recently, the authors of the present work (together with M. N. Kolountzakis) introduced a new version of the non-commutative Delsarte scheme and applied it to the problem of mutually unbiased bases. Here we use this method to investigate the existence of a finite projective plane of a given order d. In particular, a short new proof is obtained for the nonexistence of a projective plane of order 6. For higher orders like 10 and 12, the method is non decisive but could turn out to give important supplementary informations.
A finite projective plane, or more generally a finite linear space, has an associated incidence complex that gives rise to two natural algebras: the Stanley-Reisner ring $R/I_Λ$ and the inverse system algebra $R/I_Δ$. We give a careful study of both of these algebras. Our main results are a full description of the graded Betti numbers of both algebras in the more general setting of linear spaces (giving the result for the projective planes as a special case), and a classification of the characteristics in which the inverse system algebra associated to a finite projective plane has the Weak or …
We compute the elementary divisors of the adjacency and Laplacian matrices of the Grassmann graph on $2$-dimensional subspaces in a finite vector space. We also compute the corresponding invariants of the complementary graphs.
We classify the orbits of elements of the tensor product spaces ${\mathbb{F}}^2\otimes {\mathbb{F}}^3 \otimes {\mathbb{F}}^3$ for all finite; real; and algebraically closed fields under the action of two natural groups. The result can also be interpreted as the classification of the orbits in the $17$-dimensional projective space of the Segre variety product of a projective line and two projective planes. This extends the classification of the orbits in the $7$-dimensional projective space of the Segre variety product of three projective lines [M. Lavrauw and J. Sheekey: Orbits of the stabilis…
Let $G$ be a group. The permutability graph of subgroups of $G$, denoted by $Γ(G)$, is a graph having all the proper subgroups of $G$ as its vertices, and two subgroups are adjacent in $Γ(G)$ if and only if they permute. In this paper, we classify the finite groups whose permutability graphs are toroidal or projective-planar. In addition, we classify the finite groups whose permutability graph does not contain one of $K_{3,3}$, $K_{1,5}$, $C_6$, $P_5$, or $P_6$ as a subgraph.
We give an upper bound on the number of rational points of an arbitrary Zariski closed subset of a projective space over a finite field. This bound depends only on the dimensions and degrees of the irreducible components and holds for very general varieties, even reducible and non equidimensional. As a consequence, we prove a conjecture of Ghorpade and Lachaud on the maximal number of rational points of an equidimensional projective variety.
Let $m$ be a positive integer and $q$ be a prime power. For large finite base fields $\mathbb F_q$, we show that any curve can be used to produce a complete $m$-arc as long as some generic explicit geometric conditions on the curve are verified. To show the effectiveness of our theory, we derive complete $m$-arcs from hyperelliptic curves and from Artin-Schreier curves.