On conics that are ovals in a Hall plane (Q1321676)

The process of derivation of the projective plane, introduced in the mid 1950's by T. G. Ostrom, can be thought of as a redefinition of certain lines in the plane. From this viewpoint it is natural to ask whether or not there are configurations in the original plane which are not effected by this redefinition, such configurations would be called inherited in the new plane. In one of the simplest situations, starting with a Desarguesian plane of square order and using certain Baer subplanes to redefine some lines, one obtains a Hall plane of the same order. Thus, one can ask about the inherited configurations in the Hall planes, and in particular, which if any of the conics of the Desarguesian planes are inherited in the Hall planes. Several results are known for both even and odd characteristic cases. In the even characteristic case, with which this paper is concerned, conics having their nucleus, \(N\), on the line at infinity (and hence also a point \(P\) of the conic of that line) are known to inherit if precisely one of these two points is in the derivation set [\textit{C. M. O'Keefe}, \textit{A. A. Pascasio} and \textit{T. Penttila}, Eur. J. Comb. 13, No. 3, 195-199 (1992; Zbl 0761.51011)], and not to inherit if both points are in the derivation set (C. M. O'Keefe and A. A. Pascasio, to appear). The paper under review deals with the case that neither point is in the derivation set. It is shown that if the order of the Desarguesian plane is \(q=2^ h\), then a conic with \(P\) and \(N\) as above inherits in the corresponding Hall plane if and only if \(h\) is even and \(P\) and \(N\) are conjugate with respect to the derivation set (images under the unique involutory projectivity of the infinite line which fixes each point of the derivation set). Two proofs are provided for this result. The shorter utilizes a representation of the Miquelian inversive plane of order \(q\), while the second (and original) proof is an intensive characteristic 2 computation.