Subquadrangles of order \(s\) of generalized quadrangles of order \((s, s^2)\) (Q447761)

This article, as its title indicates, surveys results pertaining to subquadrangles of order \(s\) of generalized quadrangles (GQ's) of order \((s,s^2)\). After some basic definitions, the classical GQ's are discussed, and then there is a section devoted to the translation and flock GQ's, the construction of which we briefly describe: For the translation GQ's, let \(m\) and \(n\) be positive integers and let \(\mathcal{O}=\mathcal{O}(n,m,q)\) be an egg (a particular configuration of subspaces in \(\mathrm{PG}(2n+m-1,q)\)). One can use the egg to construct an incidence structure \(T(\mathcal{O})\) which is a GQ of order \((q^n, q^m)\). When \(n=m\), an egg is called a pseudo-oval, and when \(2n=m\), an egg is called a pseudo-ovoid. All known eggs are either pseudo-ovals or pseudo-ovoids. For the flock GQ's one starts with a \text{flock} \(\mathcal{F}\) (a particular partition of a quadratic cone minus its vertex in \(\mathrm{PG}(3,q)\)), and one can then construct a GQ \(\mathcal{S}(\mathcal{F})\) of order \((q^2,q)\). It turns out that every known GQ of order \((s,s^2)\) is either a translation GQ \(T(\mathcal{O})\) for some pseudo-ovoid \(\mathcal{O}\), or the point-line dual of a flock GQ \(\mathcal{S}(\mathcal{F})\). The remainder of the paper is devoted to a study of the subquadrangles of order \(s\) of these two types of GQ. Indeed the study of translation GQ's of order \((s,s^2)\) breaks up further and to explain this we need two more definitions. Given a pseudo-ovoid \(\mathcal{O}(n,2n,q)\) we can construct the translation dual \(\mathcal{O}^*(n,2n,q)\) which is a pseudo-ovoid in the dual space of \(\mathrm{PG}(2n+m-1,q)\). (This is a different notion to that of the point-line dual.) Furthermore a pseudo-ovoid \(\mathcal{O}\) is called good at some element \(\pi\) if it satisfies a particular geometric configuration. Now the key fact is this: for every known pseudo-ovoid \(\mathcal{O}\), either \(\mathcal{O}\) or \(\mathcal{O}^*\) is good at one of its elements. Thus the study of the subquadrangles of translation GQ's \(T(\mathcal{O})\) of order \((s,s^2)\) breaks naturally into two cases: one where \(\mathcal{O}\) is good at one of its elements, the other where \(\mathcal{O}^*\) is good at one of its elements. The even characteristic situation is slightly different, since in this case \(\mathcal{O}\) is good at one of its elements if and only if \(\mathcal{O}^*\) is good at one of its elements, and is treated separately.