Two remarks on blocking sets and nuclei in planes of prime order (Q676688)

The authors investigate two problems related only by the techniques used for solving them (polynomials over finite fields). The first problem is concerned with \textit{blocking sets}, a point set in a projective plane which intersects every line but contains no line. In a projective plane of order \(q\), a line can meet a blocking set \(B\) in at most \(\mid B \mid - q\) points. If there is a line meeting \(B\) in the maximum number of points, the blocking set is said to be of \textit{Rédei type}. There is only one known example of a blocking set of size \(3(q+1)/2\) (this is a lower bound on the size of a blocking set for planes of prime order) which is not of Rédei type. This example is obtained by embedding the affine plane of order 3 in \(PG(2,7)\) (as the points of inflexion of a non-singular cubic). Upon taking the dual, the 12 lines of the affine plane form the blocking set. In this paper this example is characterized as follows: if \(B\) is a blocking set of size \(3(p+1)/2\) in \(PG(2,p)\), \(p\) a prime, and there is a line intersecting \(B\) in \((p+1)/2\) points, then \(p \leq 7\). For \(p < 7\) the blocking sets are of Rédei type (with respect to another line) and for \(p=7\) there is a unique example. The second problem deals with \textit{nuclei} of sets. Mazzocca defined the nucleus of a \((q+1)\)- set \(S\) as a point not in \(S\) such that every line through it meets \(S\) in exactly one point. Blokhuis generalized the notion of a nucleus for sets of size greater than \(q+1\). In this paper, another generalization, to sets of size less than \(q+1\), is given. Let \(S\) be a point set of size \(q + 1 - k\), then a point \(P \not \in S\) is a \textit{nucleus} of \(S\) if the lines through \(P\) intersect \(S\) in at most one point. For planes of prime order they show that the number of nuclei of a set of size \(q+1-k\) is less than \((k+1)(q-1)\). This result is in a sense ``symmetric'' to the corresponding result obtained by Blokhuis. The restriction to prime order is a result of the algebraic techniques used to obtain these results.