A common characterization of ovoids and nonsingular ruled quadrics in \(PG(d,n)\) (Q1126982)

A non-empty subset \(T\) of the set of points of a projective space \(PG(d,q)\) is called ``Tallini set'' if every line not contained in \(T\) intersects \(T\) in at most two points. Ovoids and quadrics are examples of Tallini sets. A Tallini set is called ruled if it contains a line of \(PG(d,q)\). For \(p\) a point of \(T\) let the tangent set to \(T\) at \(P\) be the union of the lines which are tangent to \(T\) at \(p\). The author characterizes the ovoids and the ruled quadrics among the Tallini sets of \(PG(d,q)\), \(d \geq 2\), \(q \geq 4\), by the property that there are \(d+1\) points in \(T\) such that the tangent set to \(T\) at each of them is a hyperplane.