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For a point of the projective space $\PG(n,q)$, its R\'edei factor is the linear polynomial in $n+1$ variables, whose coefficients are the point coordinates. The power sum polynomial of a subset $S$ of $\PG(n,q)$ is the sum of the $(q-1)$-th powers of the R\'edei factors of the points of $S$. The fact that many subsets may share the same power sum polynomial offers a natural connection to discrete tomography. In this paper we deal with the two-dimensional case and show that the notion of ghost, whose employment enables to find all solutions of the tomographic problem, can be rephrased in the finite geometry context, where subsets with null power sum polynomial are called ghosts as well. In the latter case, one can add ghosts still preserving the power sum polynomial by means of the multiset sum (modulo the field characteristic). We prove some general results on ghosts in $\PG(2,q)$ and compute their number in case $q$ is a prime., Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures; accepted for publication in Lecture Notes in Computer Science

The reconstruction of an unknown function $f$ from its line sums is the aim of discrete tomography. However, two main aspects prevent reconstruction from being an easy task. In general, many solutions are allowed due to the presence of the switching functions. Even when uniqueness conditions are available, results about the NP-hardness of reconstruction algorithms make their implementation inefficient when the values of $f$ are in certain sets. We show that this is not the case when $f$ takes values in a field or a unique factorization domain, such as $\R$ or $\Z$. We present a linear time reconstruction algorithm (in the number of directions and in the size of the grid), which outputs the original function values for all points outside of the switching domains. Freely chosen values are assigned to the other points, namely, those with ambiguities. Examples are provided., Comment: 26 pages, 7 figures, accepetd for publication in Discrete Applied Mathematics

The goal of discrete tomography is to reconstruct an unknown function $f$ via a given set of line sums. In addition to requiring accurate reconstructions, it is favourable to be able to perform the task in a timely manner. This is complicated by the presence of ghosts, which allow many solutions to exist in general. In this paper we consider the case of a function $f : A \to \mathbb{R}$ where $A$ is a finite grid in $\mathbb{Z}^3$. Previous work has shown that in the two-dimensional case it is possible to determine all solutions in parameterized form in linear time (with respect to the number of directions and the grid size) regardless of whether the solution is unique. In this work, we show that a similar linear method exists in three dimensions under the condition of nonproportionality. We show that the condition of nonproportionality is fulfilled in the case of three-dimensional boundary ghosts., Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures; accepted for publication on Contributions to Discrete Mathematics

Discrete tomography deals with the reconstruction of images from projections collected along a few given directions. Different approaches can be considered, according to different models. In this paper we adopt the grid model, where pixels are lattice points with integer coordinates, X-rays are discrete lattice lines, and projections are obtained by counting the number of lattice points intercepted by X-rays taken in the assigned directions. We move from a theoretical result that allows uniqueness of reconstruction in the grid with just four suitably selected X-ray directions. In this framework, the structure of the allowed ghosts is studied and described. This leads to a new result, stating that the unique binary solution can be explicitly and exactly retrieved from the minimum Euclidean norm solution by means of a rounding method based on some special entries, which are precisely determined. A corresponding iterative algorithm has been implemented, and tested on a few phantoms having different characteristics and structure.