On Frobenius incidence varieties of linear subspaces over finite fields (Q765805)

Let \(p\) be a prime number, let \(r\) and \(s\) be powers of \(p\) and let \(l,c,n\) be positive integers with \(l+s<n\). For \(d>0\) denote by \(G_{n,d}\) the Grassmannian variety of \(d\)-dimensional subspaces of a fixed linear space \(V/\mathbb F_p\) of dimension \(n\). For \(q\) a power of \(p\) and \(L\subset V\) defined by equations \(\sum a_{ij}x_j=0\), \(i=1,\ldots, n-d\), let \(L^q\) be the space defined by equations \(\sum a_{ij}^qx_j=0\). Frobenius incidence varieties \(X=X[r,s]^c_l/\mathbb F_p\) satisfy the following property: for any field \(F/\mathbb F_p\), one has \(X(F)=\{(L,M)\in G_{n,l}(F)\times G_{n, n-c}(F)\,|\, L^r\subset M \text{ and } L\subset M^s\}\). These varieties are shown to be smooth, projective, geometrically irreducible and purely inseparably unirational over \(\mathbb F_p\). It is established that the number of \(\mathbb F_{(rs)^{\nu}}\)-rational points of \(X\), \(\nu>0\), equals to \(N((rs)^{\nu})\) for some polynomial \(N(t)\) with integer coefficients. A recursive formula for the polynomial \(N(t)\) is also given, which allows to compute Betti numbers of \(X\). As an application, by studying the intersection pairing of algebraic cycles on a \(4\)-dimensional variety \(X[2,2]^1_1\), one produces an explicit positive-definite lattice of rank \(84\), which gives a dense sphere packing: its density exceeds the Minkowski-Hlawka bound \(\zeta(m)\cdot 2^{-m+1}\cdot V_m^{-1}\) where \(\zeta\) is the Riemann zeta function and \(V_m\) is the volume of the \(m\)-dimensional unit ball.