There are no sharply transitive subsets of $\mathrm{SL}(2,q)$ for $q\ge 13$

Abstract

It was known at least to L.E. Dickson in 1901 that $\mathrm{SL}(2,q)$, in its natural action on ${\mathbb{F}}_q^2\setminus \{0\}$, has a sharply transitive subgroup only when $q\in \{2,3,5,7,11\}$. For $q$ prime, this result stems from Galois' letter to Chevalier in 1832. We extend this result to sharply transitive subsets of $\mathrm{SL}(2,q)$ and show that they only exist when $q\in \{2,3,5,7,11\}$.