Perfect Baer Subplane Partitions and Three-Dimensional Flag-Transitive Planes

The classification of perfectBaer subplane partitions of PG(2, q²) is equivalentto the classification of 3-dimensional flag-transitive planeswhose translation complements contain a linear cyclic group actingregularly on the line at infinity. Since all known flag-transitiveplanes admit a translation complement containing a linear cyclicsubgroup which either acts regularly on the points of the lineat infinity or has two orbits of equal size on these points,such a classification would be a significant step towards theclassification of all 3-dimensional flag-transitive planes. Usinglinearized polynomials, a parametric enumeration of all perfectBaer subplane partitions for odd q is described.Moreover, a cyclotomic conjecture is given, verified by computerfor odd prime powers q < 200, whose truth would implythat all perfect Baer subplane partitions arise from a constructionof Kantor and hence the corresponding flag-transitive planesare all known.