Transitive and Co-Transitive Caps

A cap in PG(r,q) is a set of points, no three of which are collinear. A cap is said to be transitive if its automorphism group in PGammaL(r+1,q) acts transtively on the cap, and co-transitive if the automorphism group acts transtively on the cap's complement in PG(r,q). Transitive, co-transitive caps are characterized as being one of: an elliptic quadric in PG(3,q); a Suzuki-Tits ovoid in PG(3,q); a hyperoval in PG(2,4); a cap of size 11 in PG(4,3); the complement of a hyperplane in PG(r,2); or a union of Singer orbits in PG(r,q) whose automorphism group comes from a subgroup of GammaL(1,q^{r+1}).Comment: To appear in The Bulletin of the Belgian Mathematical Society - Simon Stevi

Subspace code constructions

We improve on the lower bound of the maximum number of planes of ${\rm PG}(8,q)$ mutually intersecting in at most one point leading to the following lower bound: ${\cal A}_q(9, 4; 3) \ge q^{12}+2q^8+2q^7+q^6+q^5+q^4+1$ for constant dimension subspace codes. We also construct two new non-equivalent $(6, (q^3-1)(q^2+q+1), 4; 3)_q$ constant dimension subspace orbit-codes

On curves covered by the Hermitian curve

For each proper divisor d of (r^2-r+1), r being a power of a prime, maximal curves over a finite field with r^2 elements covered by the Hermitian curve of genus 1/2((r^2-r+1)/d-1) are constructed.Comment: 18 pages, Latex2

On Twisted Tensor Product Group Embeddings and the Spin Representation of Symplectic Groups: The Case q Odd

The group PSp8(q),  q odd, has a maximal subgroup isomorphic to 3.PSp2(q3) belonging to the Aschbacher class 𝒞9. It is the full stabilizer of a complete partial ovoid and of a complete partial 3-spread of 𝒲7(q)