Projective planes of prime order p that admit collineation groups of order \(p^ 2\) (Q1096172)

The author investigates projective planes of prime order p that admit collineation groups of order \(p^ 2\). In particular, he shows how to join the work of \textit{P. Dembowski} and \textit{T. G. Ostrom} [Math. Z. 103, 239-258 (1968; Zbl 0163.424)] to that of \textit{A. Golcalves} and \textit{C. Y. Ho} [Geom. Dedicata 20, 357-366 (1986; Zbl 0588.51005)] to obtain the fundamental structure of such planes. The main results are: 1) a) Let P denote a non-Desarguesian projective plane of prime order p which admits a collineation group \({\mathcal G}\) of order \(p^ 2\). Let \({\mathcal F}\) denote the full collineation group of P. Then \({\mathcal G}\trianglelefteq {\mathcal F}\) and \({\mathcal G}\) has a p-complement H such that H is cyclic of order dividing p-1, \({\mathcal F}={\mathcal G}\cdot H\). b) There is an affine restriction A of P such that \({\mathcal F}\) acts on A and also acts faithfully on the Desarguesian affine plane \(\Sigma\) defined on the points of A. Acting on \(\Sigma\), \({\mathcal G}\) is the ordinary full translation group of \(\Sigma\) and \(H\subseteq GL(2,p);\) 2) Let P be a projective plane of prime order p which admits a collineation group of order \(p^ 2(p-1)\). Then P is Desarguesian. 3) Let P be a projective plane of prime order p admitting a collineation group of order \(p^ 2\). Let \({\mathcal F}\) denote the full collineation group of P. (1) If \(| {\mathcal F}| \geq p^ 2(p-1)\) then P is Desarguesian. (2) If \(| {\mathcal F}| = p^ 2-(p-1)/2\) and P is non-Desarguesian then \(f(x)=x^ j+bx^{j+(p-1)/2}\) for \(b\neq 0\) in GF(p) is a planar function on GF(p) for some \(1\leq j\leq p-1.\) (3) If \(| {\mathcal F}|\) is even then \(f(x)=\sum^{p- 1}_{i=0}f_{2i}x^{2i}\) is a planar function of GF(p) for \(f_{2i}\) constants. Definition: Let \({\mathcal G}\) be an elementary abelian p-group of order \(p^ 2\) and \({\mathcal G}=\Phi \times \Pi\) where \(| \Phi | =| \Pi | =p\). A mapping f from \(\Phi\) to \(\Pi\) is a planar function with respect to \(\Phi\times \Pi\) if and only if for each \(u\neq 0\) in \(\Phi\), the function \(\lambda_ u\) defined by \(f(u+x)-f(x)=\lambda_ u(x)\) for all \(x\in \Phi\) is \(1 - 1\) and onto.