On the geometry of regular hyperbolic fibrations (Q2372425)

A hyperbolic fibration of \(\text{PG}(3,q)\) is a collection of \(q-1\) hyperbolic quadrics and two lines in \(PG(3,q)\) that partition the points of \(\text{PG}(3,q)\). By selecting on each of the \(q-1\) quadrics one of the associated reguli one gets a spread of \(\text{PG}(3,q)\). Spreads of this type were first investigated by \textit{F. A. Sherk} and \textit{G. Pabst} [Can. J. Math. 29, 132--154 (1977; Zbl 0342.50012)] under the name of md-spreads. A hyperbolic fibration is said to agree on one of its lines if each quadric in the fibration intersects the other line in the same pair of conjugate points when extended to \(\text{GF}(q^ 2)\). A hyperbolic fibration is called regular if the two lines of the fibration are conjugate with respect to the polarity associated with any of the quadrics of the fibration. The authors show that for \(q\) even every hyperbolic fibration of \(\text{PG}(3,q)\) is regular. For \(q\) odd the same holds for hyperbolic fibrations which agree on one of its lines. In the course of the proof they give a geometric explanation for a correspondence between hyperbolic fibrations which agree on one of its lines and flocks of quadratic cones which was discovered algebraically by \textit{R. D. Baker, G. L. Ebert} and \textit{T. Penttila} [Des. Codes Cryptogr. 34, 295--305 (2005; Zbl 1079.51504)].