Related papers: Determination of hyperovals by lines through a few…

A hyperoval in the projective plane $\mathbb{P}^2(\mathbb{F}_q)$ is a set of $q+2$ points no three of which are collinear. Hyperovals have been studied extensively since the 1950s with the ultimate goal of establishing a complete…

According to a computer search conducted by the author and described in [7], in $Q^+(6, 4)$ there are two types of hyperovals, having 72 and 96 points, respectively. Here we give geometric descriptions for these examples.

For even $q$, a group $G$ isomorphic to $PSL(2,q)$ stabilizes a Baer conic inside a symplectic subquadrangle ${\cal W}(3,q)$ of ${\cal H}(3,q^2)$. In this paper the action of $G$ on points and lines of ${\cal H}(3,q^2)$ is investigated. A…

In a projective plane $\Pi_q$ of order $q$, a non-empty point set ${\cal S}_t$ is a $t$-semiarc if the number of tangent lines to ${\cal S}_t$ at each of its points is $t$. If ${\cal S}_t$ is a $t$-semiarc in $\Pi_q$, $t<q$, then each line…

We prove that if $S$ is a smooth reflexive surface in $\mathbb{P}^3$ defined over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$, then there exists an $\mathbb{F}_q$-line meeting $S$ transversely provided that $q\geq c\operatorname{deg}(S)$, where…

For any 4-variate quartic form $f\geq 0$ (i.e. $f$ nonnegative, homogeneous polynomial of degree $4$ with real coefficients) there exist quadratic forms $q$ and $q'$ so that $qq'f$ is a sum of squares (s.o.s.) of quartics, by reducing to…

We show that smooth cubic hypersurfaces of dimension $n$ defined over a finite field ${\bf F}_q$ contain a line defined over ${\bf F}_q$ in each of the following cases: - $n=3$ and $q\ge 11$; - $n=4$ and $q\ne 3$; - $n\ge 5$. For a smooth…

An arc in $\mathbb F_q^2$ is a set $P \subset \mathbb F_q^2$ such that no three points of $P$ are collinear. We use the method of hypergraph containers to prove several counting results for arcs. Let $\mathcal A(q)$ denote the family of all…

We consider the issue of when the L-polynomial of one curve over $\F_q$ divides the L-polynomial of another curve. We prove a theorem which shows that divisibility follows from a hypothesis that two curves have the same number of points…

We construct a continuously differentiable curve in the plane that can be covered by a collection of lines such that every line intersects the curve at a single point and the union of the lines has Hausdorff dimension 1. We show that for…

Consider an irreducible bilinear form $f(x_1,x_2;y_1,y_2)$ with integer coefficients. We derive an upper bound for the number of integer points $(\mathbf{x},\mathbf{y})\in\mathbb{P}^1\times\mathbb{P}^1$ inside a box satisfying the equation…

Let $\mathcal{Q}_1$ and $\mathcal{Q}_2$ be two arbitrary quadrics with no common hyperplane in ${\mathbb{P}}^n(\mathbb{F}_q)$. We give the best upper bound for the number of points in the intersection of these two quadrics. Our result…

We consider hyper- and superelliptic equations $f(x)=by^m$ with unknowns x,y from the ring of S-integers of a given number field K. Here, f is a polynomial with S-integral coefficients of degree n with non-zero discriminant and b is a…

Let $d$ and $n$ be positive integers, and $E/F$ be a separable field extension of degree $m=\binom{n+d}{n}$. We show that if $|F| > 2$, then there exists a point $P\in \mathbb{P}^n(E)$ which does not lie on any degree $d$ hypersurface…

A curve over a field k is pointless if it has no k-rational points. We show that there exist pointless genus-3 hyperelliptic curves over a finite field F_q if and only if q < 26, that there exist pointless smooth plane quartics over F_q if…

A set of lines in $\mathbb{R}^d$ passing through the origin is called equiangular if any two lines in the set form the same angle. We proved an alternative version of the three-point semidefinite constraints developed by Bachoc and…

A set S of 2n+1 points in the plane is said to be in general position if no three points of S are collinear and no four are concyclic. A circle is called halving with respect to S if it has three points of S on its circumference, n-1 points…

For any affine hypersurface defined by a complete symmetric polynomial in $k\geq 3$ variables of degree $m$ over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_{q}$ of $q$ elements, a special case of our theorem says that this hypersurface has at least…

By a hyperelliptic curve over Q, we mean a smooth, geometrically irreducible, complete curve C over Q equipped with a fixed map of degree 2 to P^1 defined over Q. Thus any hyperelliptic curve C over Q of genus g can be embedded in weighted…

Let $S$ be a smooth cubic surface over a finite field $\mathbb F_q$. It is known that $\#S(\mathbb F_q) = 1 + aq + q^2$ for some $a \in \{-2,-1,0,1,2,3,4,5,7\}$. Serre has asked which values of a can arise for a given $q$. Building on…