Ovoidal blocking sets and maximal partial ovoids of Hermitian varieties

Abstract

In Mazzocca et al. (Des. Codes Cryptogr. 44:97---113, 2007), large minimal blocking sets in PG(3, q 2) and PG(4, q 2) have been constructed starting from ovoids of PG(3, q), Q(4, q) and Q(6, q). Some of these can be embedded in a Hermitian variety as maximal partial ovoids. In this paper, the geometric conditions assuring these embeddings are established.