Multiple blocking sets and multisets in Desarguesian planes (Q2638404)

The present paper is motivated by Ebert's equation of Buekenhout-Metz unitals in Desarguesian projective planes. Let \(PG(2, q^2)\) be the Desarguesian projective plane of order \(q^2\), where \(q\) is any prime power. Fix a projective frame in \(PG(2, q^2)\) with homogeneous coordinates \((x_0, x_1, x_2)\), and consider the affine plane \(AG(2, q^2)\) whose infinite line has equation \(x_0 = 0\). In \(AG(2, q^2)\), the minimum size of a minimal \((q-1)\)-fold blocking set is known to be \(q^3-1\). In this paper, the authors construct minimal \((q - 1)\)-fold blocking sets of size \(q^3\) in \(AG(2, q^2)\). As a byproduct, they also obtain new two-character multisets in \(PG(2, q^2)\). The essential idea in this paper is to investigate \(q^3\)-sets satisfying the opposite of Ebert's discriminant condition.