The exterior splash in \(\mathrm{PG}(6, q)\): transversals (Q1623008)

Let \(\pi\) be a subplane of \(\mathrm{PG}(2,q^3)\) of order \(q\) that is exterior to the line at infinity. The exterior splash of this plane is the set of \(q^2+q+1\) points on the line at infinity that lie on an extended line of \(\pi\). The set of points in an exterior splash occur in different settings, specifically scattered \(F_q\) linear sets of rank 3, covers of the circle geometry \(\mathrm{CG}(3,q)\), hyper-reguli in \(\mathrm{PG}(5,q)\) and Sherk surfaces of size \(q^2+q+1\). The authors use the Bruck-Bose representation in \(\mathrm{PG}(6,q)\) to study the structure of \(\pi\), showing that the point set of \(\mathrm{PG}(6,q)\) corresponding to \(\pi\) is the intersection of nine quadrics, and that there is a unique tangent plane at each point. In \(\mathrm{PG}(6,q)\), they show that each of the 2 sets of cover planes has three unique transversal lines in the cubic extension of \(\mathrm{PG}(6,q)\). These transversal lines are used to characterize the order \(q\) sublines of an exterior splash in terms of how the corresponding 2-reguli meet the cover planes.