Elliptic ovoids and their rosettes in a classical generalized quadrangle of even order

Let Q₀ be the classical generalized quadrangle of order q = 2ⁿ(n≥2) arising from a non-degenerate quadratic form in a 5-dimensional vector space defined over a finite field of order q. We consider the rank two geometry \(\mathcal {X}\) having as points all the elliptic ovoids of Q₀ and as lines the maximal pencils of elliptic ovoids of Q₀ pairwise tangent at the same point. We first prove that \(\mathcal {X}\) is isomorphic to a 2-fold quotient of the affine generalized quadrangle Q?Q₀, where Q is the classical (q,q²)-generalized quadrangle admitting Q₀ as a hyperplane. Further, we classify the cliques in the collinearity graph Γ of \(\mathcal {X}\). We prove that any maximal clique in Γ is either a line of \(\mathcal {X}\) or it consists of 6 or 4 points of \(\mathcal {X}\) not contained in any line of \(\mathcal {X}\), accordingly as n is odd or even. We count the number of cliques of each type and show that those cliques which are not contained in lines of \(\mathcal {X}\) arise as subgeometries of Q defined over \(\mathbb {F}_{2}\).