On Almost Complete Subsets of a Conic in PG(2,q), Completeness of Normal Rational Curves and Extendability of Reed-Solomon Codes

A subset $\mathcal{S}$ of a conic $\mathcal{C}$ in the projective plane $\mathrm{PG}(2,q)$ is called almost complete (AC-subset for short) if it can be extended to a larger arc in $\mathrm{PG}(2,q)$ only by the points of $\mathcal{C}\setminus \mathcal{S}$ and by the nucleus of $\mathcal{C}$ when $q$ is even. New upper bounds on the smallest size $t(q)$ of an AC-subset are obtained, in particular, \begin{align*} &t(q)<\sqrt{q(3\ln q+\ln\ln q +\ln3)}+\sqrt{\frac{q}{3\ln q}}+4\thicksim\sqrt{3q\ln q};&t(q)<1.835\sqrt{q\ln q}.\end{align*} The new bounds are used to increase regions of pairs $(N,q)$ for which it is proved that every normal rational curve in $\mathrm{PG}(N,q)$ is a complete $(q+1)$-arc or, equivalently, that no $[q+1,N+1,q-N+1]_q$ generalized doubly-extended Reed-Solomon code can be extended to a $[q+2,N+1,q-N+2]_q$ MDS code.