No label defined (Q4527063)

This paper, consisting of the notes of a course in the summer school in Braunschweig, Germany (May 1999), presents several applications of lacunary polynomials in finite geometry. After a brief review of some results concerning lacunary polynomials over finite fields, the Rédei polynomial allows the application of this theory in order to obtain estimates of the size and structure of sets of points in the desarguesian affine plane \(AG(2,q)\) determining few directions, and of blocking sets in the desarguesian projective plane \(PG(2,q)\). The last part of the paper presents a complete proof of a result concerning maximal arcs in \(PG(2,q)\) [\textit{S. Ball} and \textit{A. Blokhuis}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 126, 3377-3380 (1998; Zbl 0914.51008)]. A \((k,n)\)-arc is a set of \(k\) points, such that each line intersects the set in at most \(n\) points. A maximal one contains \(1+(q+1)(n-1)\) points. The result proven in the paper says that maximal arcs do not exist if \(q\) is odd. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0952.00028].