Intersections in projective space. II: Pencils of quadrics (Q1102537)

[For part I see the authors, Math. Z. 193, 215-225 (1986; Zbl 0579.51010)]. The authors give a complete classification of those pencils \({\mathcal B}\) of quadrics in the projective space PG(3,q) over a finite field GF(q), where \({\mathcal B}\) contains at least one non-singular quadric and where the base curve of \({\mathcal B}\) is not absolutely irreducible. Up to projective equivalence, there are 27 pencils of this type if q is odd, and 23 pencils if q is even. As consequences of this classification, one obtains partitions of PG(3,q) by lines (i.e. spreads of lines) and by quadrics [cp. \textit{G. L. Ebert}, Can. J. Math. 37, 1163-1175 (1985; Zbl 0571.51002)]. Furthermore, the authors give the dual pencil for each pencil \({\mathcal B}\) as above, and they comment briefly on the case where the base curve is irreducible.