A geometric construction of finite semifields (Q877699)

Denote by \(\mathbb F\) the finite field of \(q^n\) elements and by \({\mathbb F}_0\) its subfield of \(q\) elements, and assume \(n\geq 2\). For vector spaces \(V_i\) of rank \(i\) over \(\mathbb F\) consider \(V_1 \oplus V_r\) \((r\geq 2)\) as a rank \((r+1)n\) vector space over \({\mathbb F}_0\) and let \({\mathcal D}(V_1 \oplus V_r)\) be the spread of subspaces of rank \(n\) over \({\mathbb F}_0\) arising from the spread of subspaces of rank 1 over \(\mathbb F\). For any subset \(T\subseteq V_1 \oplus V_r\) define \(B(T) = \{ S \in {\mathcal D}(V_1 \oplus V_r) \mid T\cap S \not= \emptyset\}\). Let \(U\) and \(W\) be \({\mathbb F}_0\)-subspaces of \(V_r\) of rank \(n\) and \((r-1)n\), respectively, satisfying \(B(U) \cap B(W) = \emptyset\), and let \(0\not= v\in V_1\). Then it is proved that \({\mathcal S}(U,W) = \{\langle S,W\rangle/W \mid S\in B(\langle v,U\rangle)\}\) is a semifield spread of \((V_1\oplus V_r)/W\). Let \({\mathbb S}(U,W)\) denote the semifield corresponding to \({\mathcal S}(U,W)\). The main result is: for every finite semifield \(\mathbb S\) with prime field \({\mathbb F}_0\), there exist subspaces \(U\) and \(W\) of \({\mathbb F}_0^{n^2}\) such that \(\mathbb S\) is isotopic to \({\mathbb S}(U,W)\). Then the well known Knuth operations applied to \({\mathbb S}(U,W)\) and \({\mathbb S}(W,U)\) yield twelve semifields associated with any semifield \(\mathbb S\) of rank two over its left nucleus, but it is an open problem to determine in general how many pairwise non-isotopic semifields are among them.