A bound on the number of points of a curve in projective space over a finite field

Abstract

For a nondegenerate irreducible curve $C$ of degree $d$ in ${\Bbb P}^r$ over ${\Bbb F}_q$ with $r \geq 3$, we prove that the number $N_q(C)$ of ${\Bbb F}_q$-points of $C$ satisfies the inequality $N_q(C) \leq (d-1)q +1$, which is known as Sziklai's bound if $r=2$.