Exotic Steiner chains in Miquelian Möbius planes of odd order

Abstract

Abstract In the Euclidean plane, two circles that intersect or are tangent clearly do not carry a finite Steiner chain of circles. We show that such exotic Steiner chains exist in finite Miquelian Möbius planes of odd order. We obtain explicit conditions in terms of the order of the plane and the capacitance of the two carrier circles for the existence, length, and number of Steiner chains.