On \(m\)-ovoids of symplectic polar spaces (Q778716): Difference between revisions

Consider the finite symplectic polar space \(W(2r-1,p^e)\) of rank \(r\), i.e., the geometry of totally isotropic subspaces of a non-degenerate alternating form on \(\mathsf{PG}(2r-1,p^e)\), where \(p\) is a prime and \(r,e\) are integers. An \(m\)-ovoid in here is a set of points \(\mathcal{M}\) meeting every generator of \(W(2r-1,p^e)\) in exactly \(m\) points. The main issues are: for which \(m\) are there \(m\)-ovoids in \(W(2r-1,p^e\)) and constructing examples. For \(m=1\), the existence problem is known: \(W(2r-1,p^e)\) has (\(1\)-)ovoids if and only if \(r=p=2\). For \(m \geq 2\), only partial results/constructions are known, and mainly for low rank (\(r=2,3\)). This leads to higher rank examples as follows: If there is an \(m\)-ovoid \(W(2r-1, p^e)\), field reduction yields an \(m'\)-ovoid in \(W(2r'-1,p^{e'})\), where \(r'\) is a multiple of \(r\) and \(re=r'e'\). In this paper, the authors give a new construction for \(m\)-ovoids in \(W(2r-1,p^e)\) for higher rank \(r\), where \(r\) is prime, implying that it does not arise from field reduction, opposed to the other known constructions so far for higher rank. The construction uses certain strongly regular Cayley graphs \(\mathsf{Cay}(\mathbb{F}_{p^e}, D)\), where the connection set \(D\) is a union of cyclotomic classes. This is a partial converse to a theorem that says that an \(m\)-ovoid in \(W(2r-1,p^e)\) gives rise to a certain such Cayley graph.