Small blocking sets of Hermitian designs (Q1320396)

The authors consider the committees (i.e., the blocking sets of minimum cardinality) of the Hermitian design \(H(q)\) formed by the points and the Hermitian unitals of PG\((2,q^ 2)\). They prove that the committees of \(H(3)\) are the lines of PG\((2,9)\) and the validity of the following bounds for the cardinality \(b(H(q))\) of the committees of \(H(q)\): \( 2q+2\leq b(H(q))\leq(1+7 \ln q)(q^ 2+1)q^{-1}\) for all odd prime powers \(q\).