Nearfield planes and the direction problem in \(\mathrm{AG}(2,q^2)\) (Q494300)

Let \(U\) be a set of points in the affine Desarguesian plane \(\mathrm{AG}(2,s)\) and let \(D_U\) the set of the directions determined by \(U\), where \(N = |D_U|\). In general the direction problem is to determine the possible values of \(N\) and to characterize the corresponding point sets. When \(s=p^2\), with \(p\) an odd prime, and \(|U| = s\), \textit{A. Gács} et al. [Innov. Incidence Geom. 6--7, 189--201 (2007; Zbl 1181.51007)] proved that, for \(N = (p^2+3)/2\), there is a unique example. In particular, \(U \cup D_U\) is a blocking set of \(\mathrm{PG}(2,s)\) of size \(3(s+1)/2\) due to Megyesi. Here, assuming some extra hypotheses, the authors prove a similar result for \(s=q^2\), with \(q\) an odd prime power. This result is achieved by using the fact that if \(|U| = q^2\) and \(D_U\) is disjoint from a Baer subline of the line at infinity, then \(U\) can be seen as an indicator set. Note that an indicator set canonically defines a spread of \(\mathrm{PG}(3,q)\), but the same spread can arise from different non-isomorphic indicator sets. Also, if \(U\) is an indicator set, then \(U \cup D_U\) is a blocking set of \(\mathrm{PG}(2,q^2)\). In particular the authors show that \(q^2\) points of the Megyesi blocking set can be regarded as an indicator set defining a regular nearfield spread of \(\mathrm{PG}(3,q)\). Viceversa, for a regular nearfield spread \(\mathcal S\) of \(\mathrm{PG}(3,q)\), there exists an indicator set \(U\) of \(\mathcal S\), such that \(U \cup D_U\) is a Megyesi blocking set.