Extremal sizes of subspace partitions (Q438885)

Let \(V=V(n,q)\) be a vector space of dimension \(n\) over the Galois field of \(q\) elements. A subspace partition \(\Pi\) of \(V\) is a collection of subspaces of \(V\) such that each 1-dimensional subspace of \(V\) is in exactly one subspace of \(\Pi\). Let \(\sigma_q(n,t)\) denote the minimum size of a subspace partition of \(V\) (i.e. the number of subspaces in \(\Pi\)) in which the largest subspace has dimension \(t\), and let \(\rho_q (n,t)\) denote the maximum size of a subspace partition of \(V\) in which the smallest subspace has dimension \(t\). In this paper the authors determine, for each pair of positive integers \((n,t)\), the values of \(\sigma_q(n,t)\) and \(\rho_q (n,t)\). Furthermore they prove that if \(n\geq 2t\) then the minimum size of a maximal partial \(t\)-spread of \(V(n+t-1,t)\) is \(\sigma_q(n,t)\). Finally they conjecture that if \(\Pi\) is a subspace partition of \(V(n,q)\) with \(n_i>0\) subspaces of dimension \(d_i\), \(1<\leq i\leq k\), with \(d_1<\ldots,<d_k\), then \(n_1+\ldots+n_j\geq \sigma_q(d_j+1,d_j)\) for each \(j\in\{1,\ldots,k-1\}\).