New families of complete caps, and the asymptotic size of the largest caps, of quadrics over prime fields (Q1282297)

A cap of a quadric in \(PG(n,q)\) is a set of its points whose pairwise joins are all chords. A cap is complete if it is not contained in one of a larger size. Few examples are known of complete caps of quadrics except in low dimensions. Working over fields of odd prime order, the author constructs caps as the orbit of a point under the symmetric group acting on the coordinates or as the union of two such orbits. Using these constructions a lower bound on the maximal size of a cap of a quadric in \(PG(n,p)\) is obtained. Combined with the upper bound on the size of a cap given by Blockhuis-Moorhouse, the author shows that both bounds, and hence the actual maximal size, are asymptotic to \(n^{p-1}/(p-1)!\) as \(n\) tends to infinity. Moreover, the constructed caps are examined to determine when they are complete. Several infinite families of complete quadric caps are obtained in this situation.