Small complete caps in spaces of even characteristic (Q1919669)

A cap in a projective space \(\mathrm{PG}(d,q)\) is a set of points no three of which are collinear. A secant of the cap is a line meeting the cap in two points. Counting the number of points on a secant, one obtains a lower bound of the number of points on a complete cap (i.e., a cap which is not properly contained in another cap). This lower bound is roughly equal to \(\sqrt {2q^{d - 1}}\). \textit{B. Segre} [Ann. Mat. Pura Appl., IV. Ser. 48, 1--96 (1959; Zbl 0093.33604)]) constructed complete caps for \(d = 3\) and \(q\) even of size \(3q + 2\). This size is very close to the above lower bound. In the paper under review, this construction is generalized (by an inductive method) to higher dimensional finite projective spaces. The authors obtain complete caps of size \(q^n + 3(q^{n - 1} + \cdots + q) + 2\) in \(\mathrm{PG}(2n,q)\) \((q\) even) and \(3(q^n + \cdots + q) + 2\) in \(\mathrm{PG}(2n + 1,q)\) (again \(q\) even).