Ovals and hyperovals in Desarguesian nets (Q1878291)

In an affine plane delete a bunch of parallel classes of lines. Assume \(r<\infty\) classes are left. The resulting incidence structure \(\Sigma\) is called an \(r\)-net. An oval, or hyperoval, resp., is an \(r\)-arc, or \((r+1)\)-arc, resp., inside an \(r\)-net. Assume the affine plane is Desarguesian coordinatized by the skewfield \(D\). The authors prove: If \(r=5\), then there exists an oval in \(\Sigma\) iff \(D\) contains a root of \(x^{2}+x-1\). If \(r=6\), then there exists an oval in \(\Sigma\) iff char\(D\not=2,3\) or \(D\) properly contains GF\((4)\). If \(r=7\) and \(D\) contains a root of \(x^{3}-x^{2}-2x+1\) or \(D\) contains GF\((2^{k}),k\geq3,\) then there exists an oval in \(\Sigma\). Similar theorems are obtained for hyperovals. In a final section the authors prove some non-existence results.