Bicovering arcs and small complete caps from elliptic curves (Q364712)

A \textit{\(k\)-cap} of a projective or affine space is a set of \(k\) points, no three collinear. A \(k\)-cap of \(\mathrm{AG}(N,q)\) or \(\mathrm{PG}(N,q)\) is called \textit{complete} when it is not contained in a larger cap of \(\mathrm{AG}(N,q)\) or \(\mathrm{PG}(N,q)\). In an affine plane \(\mathrm{AG}(2,q)\) or projective plane \(\mathrm{PG}(2,q)\), a \(k\)-cap is also called a \textit{\(k\)-arc}. The authors construct in this article small complete caps in \(\mathrm{AG}(N,q)\), \(N\equiv 0 \pmod{4}\), \(q\) odd. For this construction, they rely on the concept of \textit{bicovering arcs} in the affine plane \(\mathrm{AG}(2,q)\), \(q\) odd. A \(k\)-arc \(A\) in \(\mathrm{AG}(2,q)\), \(q\) odd, is called bicovering if it is complete and every point \(P\) not in \(A\) belongs to at least two bisecants to \(A\), such that \(P\) is external to the segment cut out by one of the bisecants, and such that it is internal to the segment cut out by one of the other bisecants. To construct such bicovering arcs, the authors investigate arcs contained in non-singular cubic curves \(\mathcal{X}\). On a non-singular cubic curve, it is possible to define an abelian group on the set of \(\mathbb{F}_q\)-rational points, thus allowing to construct bicovering \(k\)-arcs in \(\mathrm{AG}(2,q)\), \(q\) odd, by using ideas on maximal 3-independent subsets of this abelian group on the set of \(\mathbb{F}_q\)-rational points.