Cyclic projective planes and binary, extended cyclic self-dual codes (Q1083688)

A cyclic projective plane of order n corresponds to a simple difference set of order \(N=n^ 2+n+1.\) The incidence matrix of the plane generates a binary cyclic code - i.e. the code is the vector space over GF(2) generated by the rows of the incidence matrix. Cyclic projective planes are known to contain ovals. Let C be the code and let \(\bar C\) be its extended code. The first main result is that \(\bar C\) is contained in a binary, extended cyclic, self dual code if and only either \(n=2\) or \(n\equiv 0 mod 4\) and N is a product of primes p where \(p\equiv^+1 mod 8\) and in the case \(p\equiv 1 mod 8\) the order of \(2 mod p\) is odd. The second main result is that if \(\bar C\) is self dual then C does not contain any of the ovals of the plane unless \(n=2\).