17 research outputs found
Arcs in Desarguesian nets
A trivial upper bound on the size k of an arc in an r-net is . It has been known for about 20 years that if the r-net is Desarguesian and has odd order, then the case cannot occur, and implies that the arc is contained in a conic. In this paper, we show that actually the same must hold provided that the difference does not exceed . Moreover, it is proved that the same assumption ensures that the arc can be extended to an oval of the net
On Hyperfocused Arcs in PG(2,q)
A k-arc in a Dearguesian projective plane whose secants meet some external
line in k-1 points is said to be hyperfocused. Hyperfocused arcs are
investigated in connection with a secret sharing scheme based on geometry due
to Simmons. In this paper it is shown that point orbits under suitable groups
of elations are hyperfocused arcs with the significant property of being
contained neither in a hyperoval, nor in a proper subplane. Also, the concept
of generalized hyperfocused arc, i.e. an arc whose secants admit a blocking set
of minimum size, is introduced: a construction method is provided, together
with the classification for size up to 10
Central aspects of skew translation quadrangles, I
Except for the Hermitian buildings , up to a combination
of duality, translation duality or Payne integration, every known finite
building of type satisfies a set of general synthetic
properties, usually put together in the term "skew translation generalized
quadrangle" (STGQ). In this series of papers, we classify finite skew
translation generalized quadrangles. In the first installment of the series, as
corollaries of the machinery we develop in the present paper, (a) we obtain the
surprising result that any skew translation quadrangle of odd order is
a symplectic quadrangle; (b) we determine all skew translation quadrangles with
distinct elation groups (a problem posed by Payne in a less general setting);
(c) we develop a structure theory for root-elations of skew translation
quadrangles which will also be used in further parts, and which essentially
tells us that a very general class of skew translation quadrangles admits the
theoretical maximal number of root-elations for each member, and hence all
members are "central" (the main property needed to control STGQs, as which will
be shown throughout); (d) we solve the Main Parameter Conjecture for a class of
STGQs containing the class of the previous item, and which conjecturally
coincides with the class of all STGQs.Comment: 66 pages; submitted (December 2013
Central aspects of skew translation quadrangles, 1
Modulo a combination of duality, translation duality or Payne integration, every known finite generalized quadrangle except for the Hermitian quadrangles H(4, q2), is an elation generalized quadrangle for which the elation point is a center of symmetry-that is, is a "skew translation generalized quadrangle" (STGQ). In this series of papers, we classify and characterize STGQs. In the first installment of the series, (1) we obtain the rather surprising result that any skew translation quadrangle of finite odd order (s, s) is a symplectic quadrangle; (2) we determine all finite skew translation quadrangles with distinct elation groups (a problem posed by Payne in a less general setting); (3) we develop a structure theory for root elations of skew translation quadrangles which will also be used in further parts, and which essentially tells us that a very general class of skew translation quadrangles admits the theoretical maximal number of root elations for each member, and hence, all members are "central" (the main property needed to control STGQs, as which will be shown throughout); and (4) we show that finite "generic STGQs," a class of STGQs which generalizes the class of the previous item (but does not contain it by definition), have the expected parameters. We conjecture that the classes of (3) and (4) contain all STGQs
Applications of finite geometries to designs and codes
This dissertation concerns the intersection of three areas of discrete mathematics: finite geometries, design theory, and coding theory. The central theme is the power of finite geometry designs, which are constructed from the points and t-dimensional subspaces of a projective or affine geometry. We use these designs to construct and analyze combinatorial objects which inherit their best properties from these geometric structures.
A central question in the study of finite geometry designs is Hamada’s conjecture, which proposes that finite geometry designs are the unique designs with minimum p-rank among all designs with the same parameters. In this dissertation, we will examine several questions related to Hamada’s conjecture, including the existence of counterexamples. We will also study the applicability of certain decoding methods to known counterexamples.
We begin by constructing an infinite family of counterexamples to Hamada’s conjecture. These designs are the first infinite class of counterexamples for the affine case of Hamada’s conjecture. We further demonstrate how these designs, along with the projective polarity designs of Jungnickel and Tonchev, admit majority-logic decoding schemes. The codes obtained from these polarity designs attain error-correcting performance which is, in certain cases, equal to that of the finite geometry designs from which they are derived. This further demonstrates the highly geometric structure maintained by these designs.
Finite geometries also help us construct several types of quantum error-correcting codes. We use relatives of finite geometry designs to construct infinite families of q-ary quantum stabilizer codes. We also construct entanglement-assisted quantum error-correcting codes (EAQECCs) which admit a particularly efficient and effective error-correcting scheme, while also providing the first general method for constructing these quantum codes with known parameters and desirable properties. Finite geometry designs are used to give exceptional examples of these codes