Planar oval sets in Desarguesian planes of even order (Q1877345)

A planar oval set in the Desarguesian projective plane \(PG(2, q)\), \(q\) even, is a set \(\Omega\) of \(q^2\) ovals in \(PG(2, q)\) with common nucleus \(n\) which intersect pairwise in one point. Hence, the incidence structure \(\pi(\Omega)\) having as points those of \(PG(2, q)\), as lines the elements of \(\Omega\) and the lines of \(PG(2, q)\) containing \(n\) and as incidence the natural one is a projective plane of order \(q\). An example planar oval set in \(PG(2, q)\), \(q = 2^h\) is the following. For any point \(p\in PG(2, q)\) let \(E\ell(p)\) denote the group of elations of \(PG(2, q)\) with center \(p\). Let \(\mathcal O\) be an oval of \(PG(2, q)\) with nucleus \(n\). Then \[ \Omega({\mathcal O}): = \{{\mathcal O}^\ell \, | \, \ell\in E\ell(p)\} \] is a planar oval set. A planar oval set \(\Omega\) is Desarguesian if \(\pi(\Omega)\) is a Desarguesian projective plane. Aregular Desarguesian oval set \(\Omega\) is a Desarguesian planar oval set such that there is a collineation from \(PG(2, q)\) to \(\pi(\Omega)\) which fixes every line through the common nucleus of the elements of \(\Omega\). \(\Omega({\mathcal O})\) is a regular Desarguesian planar oval set. The main result of the paper under review is the classification of regular Desarguesian planar oval sets. The following theorem is proved. Theorem. Let \(\Omega\) be a regular Desarguesian planar oval set in \(PG(2, q)\), and let \({\mathcal O}\in \Omega\). Then \(\Omega = \Omega({\mathcal O})\). As mentioned by the author in the Introduction, the classification of regular Desarguesian planar oval sets has been a tool for his classification of a certain type of \((0, 2)\)-geometries fully embedded in \(AG(3, q)\) (for definitions and theory of full embeddings of \((0, \alpha)\) geometries see [\textit{F. De Clerck} and \textit{M. Delanote}, Des. Codes Cryptography 32, No.1--3, 103--110 (2004; Zbl 1056.51005)]).