Complete unital-derived arcs in the Hall planes (Q5956173)

A \(k\)-arc in a finite projective plane of order \(n\) is a set of \(k\) points no three of which are collinear; a \(k\)-arc is called complete if it is not properly contained in a \((k+1)\)-arc. A unital embedded in a projective Desarguesian plane \(\text{PG}(2,q^2)\), with \(q\) a prime power, is a set \(U\) consisting of \(q^3+1\) points such that every line of the plane meets \(U\) at 1 or \(q+1\) points. A unital \(U\) is called Hermitian or classical if \(U\) consists of the absolute points of a unitary polarity. The unital-derived arcs are special complete arcs in \(\text{PG}(2,q^2)\) obtained by intersecting Hermitian unitals. The Hall plane \(H(q^2)\) of order \(q^2\) arises from the Desarguesian plane \(\text{PG}(2,q^2)\) by derivation in the following sense. The point set of \(H(q^2)\) coincides with the point set of \(\text{PG}(2,q^2)\); in \(H(q^2)\) we have two kinds of lines : the point set \(\{(x,y,1)\mid y=mx+k\) if \( m^{q+1}\neq -1 \}\) and the point set \(\{(x,y,1)\mid y=mx^q+k \) if \( m^{q+1}=-1 \}\). In the paper under review the author describes a new class of complete \((q^2-q+1)\)-arcs embedded in \(H(q^2)\) , \(q^2 > 9\); namely they are complete arcs inherited from unital-derived arcs in \(\text{PG}(2,q^2)\).