SEMINAR: Groups and Combinatorics Seminar, Ovoids and spreads of finite polar spaces

Abstract:

This talk is a survey of one of the driving topics in finite geometry, and the connections that ovoids and spreads have to other areas of finite geometry and permutation groups. Apart from a presentation of the history of the field and the main open problems, the speaker will give an overview of his most recent collaboration with Ferdinand Ihringer and Jan De Beule on ovoids of Hermitian polar spaces.