New non-existence proofs for ovoids of Hermitian polar spaces and hyperbolic quadrics (Q521904)

Let \(f\) be a (reflexive) sesquilinear or quadratic form on \(V(n + 1, q)\), the vector space of dimension \(n+1\) over the Galois field \(\mathrm{GF}(q)\). The elements of the finite classical polar space \(\mathcal{P}\) associated with \(f\) are the totally singular or totally isotropic subspaces of \(\mathrm{PG}(n, q)\) (the projective space associated with \(V(n + 1, q)\)) with relation to \(f\), according to whether \(f\) is a quadratic or sesquilinear form. The generators are the elements of maximal dimension in \(\mathcal{P}\). Let \(\mathcal{P}\) be a finite polar space. An ovoid is a set \(\mathcal{O}\) of points of \(\mathcal{P}\) meeting every generator of \(\mathcal{P}\) in exactly one point. In this work, the authors provide new proofs for the non-existence of ovoids in hyperbolic spaces of rank at least four in even characteristic, and for the Hermitian polar space \(H(5,4)\), based on the use of particular intriguing sets. They also improve the results of \textit{A. Klein} [Des. Codes Cryptography 31, No. 3, 221--226 (2004; Zbl 1052.51006)] on the non-existence of ovoids of Hermitian spaces and hyperbolic quadrics.