On the structure of 3-nets embedded in a projective plane (Q2431600)

A \textit{3-net of order \(n\)} is a point-line incidence structure consisting of \(n^2\) points, together with three classes of lines each consisting of \(n\) lines such that: (a) any two lines from different classes are incident, (b) no two lines from the same class are incident, (c) any point is incident with exactly one line from each class. In projective planes PG\((2,\mathbb{F})\) of characteristic \(p\), it is possible to define \textit{dual 3-nets}: this is a triple \((A,B,C)\), with \(A,B,C\) pairwise disjoint point sets of size \(n\), called components, such that every line meeting two distinct components meets each component in precisely one point. A dual 3-net is \textit{regularly} embedded if each component is contained in a line of PG\((2,\mathbb{F})\), otherwise the embedding is called \textit{irregular}. The main results of this article are: (1) for an irregular 3-net of order \(n\geq 5\) in PG\((2,\mathbb{F})\), if all lines from two classes are tangent to the same irreducible conic, then all lines from the third class are concurrent, (2) the converse of (1) is valid, under the condition that \(n\leq p\), with \(p\) the characteristic of \(\mathbb{F}\), if the characteristic \(p\) is larger than zero, (3) there exists a dual 3-net of order \(n=4\) contained in a cubic curve. These results are proven via a combination of various techniques, including polynomial and geometrical techniques, and results from group theory.