No label defined (Q4358786)

A spread of the 3-dimensional projective space \(PG(3,q)\) over the field of \(q\) elements is a set of pairwisely skew lines which cover the points of \(PG(3,q)\). A parallelism of \(PG(3,q)\) is a collection of \(q^2+q+1\) spreads which partitions the lines of \(PG(3,q)\). A regular spread is a spread that contains the regulus determined by any three of its lines. A regular parallelism consists only of regular spreads. For \(q=2\), there are up to projective equivalence only two parallelisms. For \(q\geq 3\) there are at least two projectively inequivalent parallelisms consisting of one regular spread and \(q^2+q\) non-regular ones. No other parallelisms have been known except a regular parallelism of \(PG(3,8)\) [see \textit{R. H. F. Denniston}, Atti. Accad. naz. Lincei, VIII. Ser., Rend., Cl. Sci. Fis. Mat. natur. 54, 373-377 (1974; Zbl 0307.50017)]. The author shows that there are precisely seven parallelisms of \(PG(3,3)\), up to projective equivalence, which are invariant under a collineation \(\sigma\) of order 5. Since the 5-Sylow subgroups of \(PGL(4,3)\) are cyclic, it is of no relevance which collineation of order 5 is taken. The proof is mostly done by the aid of a computer. There are 8424 spreads of \(PG(3,3)\). He starts by generating all of these spreads and then searches through this database in order to find parallelisms invariant under \(\sigma\). Finally, he checks whether or not these parallelisms are projectively equivalent, ending up with seven pairwisely inequivalent ones. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0869.00028].