Geometry of the inversion in a finite field and partitions of \(\mathrm{PG}(2^{k} - 1, q)\) in normal rational curves (Q457125)

Let \(q=p^n\), \(p\) prime, and consider the Galois fields \(L = \mathbb{F}_{q^n}\) and \(F = \mathbb{F}_{q}\). \(F\) is a subfield of \(L\) and therefore \(L\) can be considered as a vector space over \(F\) and the associated projective space is isomorphic to \(\mathrm{PG}(n - 1, q)\). The points of \(\mathrm{PG}(n -1, q)\) can be represented in the form \(Fx\) with \(x \in L^*\). The mapping \(j : \mathrm{PG}(n - 1, q) \to \mathrm{PG}(n - 1, q)\) defined by \(j(Fx) = Fx^{-1}\) and its properties have been studied by many authors. It has been already proved that if \(q\) is large enough then the image of a line is a normal rational curve in some subspace of \(\mathrm{PG}(n - 1, q)\). In this paper, the authors provide a more detailed geometric description of this correspondence. In particular, the main result is the following. Theorem. For any \(k > 1\) and \(q \geq 2^k -1\), the projective space \(\mathrm{PG}(2k -1,q)\) has a partition in normal rational curves of degree \(2^k -1\). For \(q < 2k - 1\) the projective space has a partition in \((q + 1)\)-tuples of independent points.