Counting plane cubic curves over finite fields with a prescribed number of rational intersection points (Q2049063)

The present paper provides an answer to the following enumeration problem: given a finite field \(\mathbb{F}_q,\,\, q>2\),\, to find the number \(c_k\)\, of pairs of plane cubic curves, without common component, that intersect in exactly \(k\)\, rational points in \(\mathbb{P}^2(\mathbb{F}_q)\). The value of \(c_k\)\, for \(k=0, \dots 9\)\, (k=9 is the maximum possible value: theorem of Bézout) comes given by Theorem 1.3. Curiously enough \(c_k\)\, is always a polynomial of degree 20 in \(q\),\, except for \(k=8\); in this case the degree is 19. The main coefficient of that polynomial is the proportion of elements of \(S_q\)\, with \(k\)\, fixed points, which follows from a result of \textit{A. Entin} [``Monodromy of hyperplane sections of curves and decomposition statistics over finite fields'', Int. Math. Res. Not. IMRN. 2021, No. 14, 10409--10441 (2021; \url{doi:10.1093/imrn/rnz120})]. Theorem 1.3 is proved using results of Coding Theory, concretely the weight enumerator of projective Reed-Muller codes. Section 2 and 3 summarizes some notions about error-correcting codes defined over \(\mathbb{F}_q\),\, in particular the weight enumerator of Reed-Muller codes and their dual and translates the original problem about cubic curves to the language of weight enumerator of projective Reed-Muller codes. Sections 4 and 5 prove theorems analogues to Theorem 1.3 for the intersection of two conics and a conic and a cubic respectively. Then Section 7 provides the proof of Theorem 1.8. Finally Section 8 discusses the possibility of similar results in the general problem for curves \(f,g\)\, of degrees \(d=d^\circ(f),\, e=d^\circ(g)\).