Partial flocks of the quadratic cone. (Q2490866)

A flock of the quadratic cone of \(\text{PG}(3, q)\) is a partition of the points of the cone different from the vertex into \(q\) irreducible conics. A partial flock is the set of pairwise disjoint conics on the cone. The author proves that in \(\text{PG}(3, q)\), \(q> 19\), a partial flock of a quadratic cone with \(q-\varepsilon\) planes can be extended to a unique flock if \(\varepsilon<{1\over 4}\sqrt{q}\).