Substructures in finite classical polar spaces (Q408957)

Let \(PG(d,q)\) be a projective space of dimension \(d\), then a polar space \(\mathcal{P}\) in \(PG(d,q)\) consists of the projective subspaces of \(PG(d,q)\) that are totally isotropic with relation to a given non-degenerate reflexive sesquilinear form or that are totally singular with relation to a given non-singular quadratic form. In this paper the author gives a collection of new and old results concerning some substructures of polar spaces: ovoids (set of points meeting every generator of the polar space in exactly one point), partial spreads (set of mutually skew generators), Cameron-Liebler line classes (correspond to sets of the hyperbolic quadric sharing a fixed number \(x\) of points with every elliptic quadric \(Q^-(3,q)\) contained in \(Q^+(5,q)\)). Results on the non-existence of ovoids in \(Q^-(2n+1,q)\), \(n\geq2\), and in \(Q^+(2n+1,q)\), \(n>q^2\), are presented in the paper. In the section on partial spreads, a bound on the number of generators of partial spreads of \(H(2n+1,q^2)\), \(n\geq2\) even, is given. Some connections with blocking sets are shown in order to present a recent improvement on Cameron-Liebler line classes in \(PG(3,q)\). Finally, connections with graph theory, in particular intriguing sets and graphs that can be constructed from a generalized quadrangle, are investigated.