On the directions problem in \(AG(n,q)\) (Q547268)

Denote by \(AG(n,q)\) and by \(PG(n,q)\), respectively, the affine and the projective geometry of the dimension \(n\) over \(GF(q)\). Look at \(PG(n,q)\) as the union of \( AG(n,q)\) and \( H_{\infty}\), a hyperplane at infinity; a subspace of \(PG(n,q)\) is called affine if it is not contained in \( H_\infty\). Hence an affine line has a point at infinity. Let \(U\) be a set of \( q^k \) points in \( AG(n,q)\) and let \(N\) be the number of different classes of parallel lines joining two points of \(U\) . Usually the set \(D_U \) of parallel classes in question is called the set of \textit{determined directions} by \(U.\) In our setting \(D_U \) can be regarded as a subset of \( H_{\infty}\) and \(B=U \cup D_U\) is a set of points in \(PG(n,q)\). A problem arising in this context is to find the possible values of \(N\) when \(U\) is a set of \(q^k\) points. In this paper it has been proved that if \({p >2},{ q = p^h},p\) an odd prime, and \[ {{ q^k} - 1 \over p - 1} < N \leq {q+3 \over 2} q ^{k-1}+ q^{k-2} +\dots+q{^2} + q, \] then do not exist sets \(U\) with \(q^{k} \) points of \(AG(n,q),\) \(k<n,\) determining \(N\) directions.