Translation Generalized Quadrangles In Even Characteristic

In this paper, we first introduce new objects called “translation generalized ovals” and “translation generalized ovoids”, and make a thorough study of these objects. We then obtain numerous new characterizations of the \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ T_{2} {\left( {\user1{\mathcal{O}}} \right)} $$\end{document} of Tits and the classical generalized quadrangle \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ {\user1{\mathcal{Q}}}{\left( {4,q} \right)} $$\end{document} in even characteristic, including the complete classification of 2-transitive generalized ovals for the even case. Next, we prove a new strong characterization theorem for the \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ T_{3} {\left( {\user1{\mathcal{O}}} \right)} $$\end{document} of Tits. As a corollary, we obtain a purely geometric proof of a theorem of Johnson on semifield flocks.