Some flocks in characteristic 3 (Q5937249)

A BLT-set is a set of \(q+1\) points of the nonsingular quadric \(Q(4,q)\), \(q\) odd, such that, given any three points of the set, there is no point of the quadric perpendicular to all three of them. They were introduced by Bader, Lunardon and Thas, though their name is due to \textit{W. M. Kantor} [J. Comb. Theory Ser. A 58, 153-157 (1991; Zbl 0738.51004)]. A \(q\)-clan is a set of \(q\) distinct \(2\times 2\)-matrices \(A_t : t\in GF(q)\) over \(GF(q)\) such that \(A_t-A_s \) is anisotropic whenever \(s\neq t\). A BLT-set arises when a \(q\)-clan is known and there are some geometric objects connected to a \(q\)-clan or to a BLT-set: certain flocks of the quadratic cone and hence certain generalised quadrangles and certain translation planes [see \textit{F. Buekenhout} (ed.), Handbook of incidence geometry, (North Holland, Amsterdam) (1995; Zbl 0821.00012), Chaps. 7, 9]. In the paper under review the authors consider \(q=3^h\), \(h\geq 1\), and present a \(q\)-clan for each value of \(h\), thus they obtain an infinite family of BLT-sets each associated to a \(q\)-clan; for \(q\geq 27\) the BLT-sets are new.