Further 6-sparse Steiner Triple Systems

We give a construction that produces 6-sparse Steiner triple systems of order v for all sufficiently large v of the form 3p, p prime and p ≡ 3 (mod 4). We also give a complete list of all 429 6-sparse systems with v < 10000 produced by this construction.     

Infinite classes of anti‐mitre and 5‐sparse Steiner triple systems

In this paper, we present three constructions for anti‐mitre Steiner triple systems and a construction for 5‐sparse ones. The first construction for anti‐mitre STSs settles two of the four unsettled admissible residue classes modulo 18 and the second construction covers such a class modulo 36. The third construction generates many infinite classes of anti‐mitre STSs in the remaining possible orders. As a consequence of these three constructions we can construct anti‐mitre systems for at least 13/14 of the admissible orders. For 5‐sparse STS(υ), we give a construction for υ ≡ 1, 19 (mod 54) and υ ≠ 109. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 14: 237–250, 2006     

Constructions for anti‐mitre Steiner triple systems

In this paper, we present a recursive construction for anti‐mitre Steiner triple systems. Furthermore, we present another construction of anti‐mitre STSs by utilizing 5‐sparse ones. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Small Embeddings of Partial Steiner Triple Systems

It was proved in 2009 that any partial Steiner triple system of order u has an embedding of order v for each admissible . This result is best possible in the sense that, for each , there exists a partial Steiner triple system of order u that does not have an embedding of order v for any . Many partial Steiner triple systems do have embeddings of orders smaller than , but much less is known about when these embeddings exist. In this paper, we detail a method for constructing such embeddings. We use this method to show that each member of a wide class of partial Steiner triple systems has an embedding of order v for at least half (or nearly half) of the orders for which an embedding could exist. For some members of this class we are able to completely determine the set of all orders for which the member has an embedding.     

Coloring Cubic Graphs by Point‐Intransitive Steiner Triple Systems

An ‐coloring of a cubic graph G is an edge coloring of G by points of a Steiner triple system such that the colors of any three edges meeting at a vertex form a block of . A Steiner triple system that colors every simple cubic graph is said to be universal. It is known that every nontrivial point‐transitive Steiner triple system that is neither projective nor affine is universal. In this article, we present the following results.

相似文献   

A conjecture on small embeddings of partial Steiner triple systems

A well‐known, and unresolved, conjecture states that every partial Steiner triple system of order u can be embedded in a Steiner triple system of order υ for all υ ≡ 1 or 3, (mod 6), υ ≥ 2u + 1. However, some partial Steiner triple systems of order u can be embedded in Steiner triple systems of order υ <2u + 1. A more general conjecture that considers these small embeddings is presented and verified for some cases. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 10: 313–321, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/jcd.10017     

On the maximum double independence number of Steiner triple systems

The maximum independence number of Steiner triple systems of order $v$ is well‐known. Motivated by questions of access balancing in storage systems, we determine the maximum total cardinality of a pair of disjoint independent sets of Steiner triple systems of order $v$ for all admissible orders.     

A Steiner triple system which colors all cubic graphs

We prove that there is a Steiner triple system ?? such that every simple cubic graph can have its edges colored by points of ?? in such a way that for each vertex the colors of the three incident edges form a triple in ??. This result complements the result of Holroyd and ?koviera that every bridgeless cubic graph admits a similar coloring by any Steiner triple system of order greater than 3. The Steiner triple system employed in our proof has order 381 and is probably not the smallest possible. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 46: 15–24, 2004     

Uniform two‐class regular partial Steiner triple systems

A 2‐class regular partial Steiner triple system is a partial Steiner triple system whose points can be partitioned into 2‐classes such that no triple is contained in either class and any two points belonging to the same class are contained in the same number of triples. It is uniform if the two classes have the same size. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of uniform 2‐class regular partial Steiner triple systems.     

The resolution of the anti‐Pasch conjecture

We show that an anti‐Pasch Steiner triple system of order v exists for v ≡ 1 or 3 (mod 6), apart from v = 7 and 13. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Combin Designs 8: 300–309, 2000     

Linearly Derived Steiner Triple Systems

We attach a graph to every Steiner triple system. The chromatic number of this graph is related to the possibility of extending the triple system to a quadruple system. For example, the triple systems with chromatic number one are precisely the classical systems of points and lines of a projective geometry over the two-element field, the Hall triple systems have chromatic number three (and, as is well-known, are extendable) and all Steiner triple systems whose graph has chromatic number two are extendable. We also give a configurational characterization of the Hall triple systems in terms of mitres.     

Nonexistence of sparse triple systems over abelian groups and involutions

In 1973 Paul Erdős conjectured that there is an integer v ₀(r) such that, for every v>v ₀(r) and v≡1,3 (mod 6), there exists a Steiner triple system of order v, containing no i blocks on i+2 points for every 1<i≤r. Such an STS is said to be r-sparse. In this paper we consider relations of automorphisms of an STS to its sparseness. We show that for every r≥13 there exists no point-transitive r-sparse STS over an abelian group. This bound and the classification of transitive groups give further nonexistence results on block-transitive, flag-transitive, 2-transitive, and 2-homogeneous STSs with high sparseness. We also give stronger bounds on the sparseness of STSs having some particular automorphisms with small groups. As a corollary of these results, it is shown that various well-known automorphisms, such as cyclic, 1-rotational over arbitrary groups, and involutions, prevent an STS from being high-sparse.      

Steiner triple systems with two disjoint subsystems

It is shown that there exists a triangle decomposition of the graph obtained from the complete graph of order v by removing the edges of two vertex disjoint complete subgraphs of orders u and w if and only if u,w, and v are odd, (mod 3), and . Such decompositions are equivalent to group divisible designs with block size 3, one group of size u, one group of size w, and v – u – w groups of size 1. This result settles the existence problem for Steiner triple systems having two disjoint specified subsystems, thereby generalizing the well‐known theorem of Doyen and Wilson on the existence of Steiner triple systems with a single specified subsystem. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs     

There exist Steiner triple systems of order 15 that do not occur in a perfect binary one‐error‐correcting code

The codewords at distance three from a particular codeword of a perfect binary one‐error‐correcting code (of length 2^m?1) form a Steiner triple system. It is a longstanding open problem whether every Steiner triple system of order 2^m?1 occurs in a perfect code. It turns out that this is not the case; relying on a classification of the Steiner quadruple systems of order 16 it is shown that the unique anti‐Pasch Steiner triple system of order 15 provides a counterexample. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 15: 465–468, 2007     

Caps and Colouring Steiner Triple Systems

Hill [6] showed that the largest cap in PG(5,3) has cardinality 56. Using this cap it is easy to construct a cap of cardinality 45 in AG(5,3). Here we show that the size of a cap in AG(5,3) is bounded above by 48. We also give an example of three disjoint 45-caps in AG(5,3). Using these two results we are able to prove that the Steiner triple system AG(5,3) is 6-chromatic, and so we exhibit the first specific example of a 6-chromatic Steiner triple system.     

Rigid Steiner Triple Systems Obtained from Projective Triple Systems

It was shown by Babai in 1980 that almost all Steiner triple systems are rigid; that is, their only automorphism is the identity permutation. Those Steiner triple systems with the largest automorphism groups are the projective systems of orders . In this paper, we show that each such projective system may be transformed to a rigid Steiner triple system by at most n Pasch trades whenever .     

The combinatorial game Nofil played on Steiner triple systems

We introduce an impartial combinatorial game on Steiner triple systems called Next One to Fill Is the Loser (Nofil ). Players move alternately, choosing points of the triple system. If a player is forced to fill a block on their turn, they lose. By computing nim-values, we determine optimal strategies for Nofil on all Steiner triple systems up to order 15 and a sampling for orders 19, 21 and 25. The game Nofil can be thought of in terms of play on a corresponding hypergraph which will become a graph during play. At that point Nofil is equivalent to playing the game Node Kayles on the graph. We prove necessary conditions and sufficient conditions for a graph to reached playing Nofil. We conclude that the complexity of determining the outcome of the game Nofil on Steiner triple systems is PSPACE-complete for randomized reductions.     

Orientable biembeddings of cyclic Steiner triple systems from current assignments on Möbius ladder graphs

We give a characterization of a current assignment on the bipartite Möbius ladder graph with 2n+1 rungs. Such an assignment yields an index one current graph with current group Z_12n+7 that generates an orientable face 2-colorable triangular embedding of the complete graph K_12n+7 or, equivalently, an orientable biembedding of two cyclic Steiner triple systems of order 12n+7. We use our characterization to construct Skolem sequences that give rise to such current assignments. These produce many nonisomorphic orientable biembeddings of cyclic Steiner triple systems of order 12n+7.     

Existence of non‐resolvable Steiner triple systems

We consider two well‐known constructions for Steiner triple systems. The first construction is recursive and uses an STS(v) to produce a non‐resolvable STS(2v + 1), for v ≡ 1 (mod 6). The other construction is the Wilson construction that we specify to give a non‐resolvable STS(v), for v ≡ 3 (mod 6), v > 9. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 13: 16–24, 2005.     

Completing partial commutative quasigroups constructed from partial Steiner triple systems is NP-complete

Deciding whether an arbitrary partial commutative quasigroup can be completed is known to be NP-complete. Here, we prove that it remains NP-complete even if the partial quasigroup is constructed, in the standard way, from a partial Steiner triple system. This answers a question raised by Rosa in [A. Rosa, On a class of completable partial edge-colourings, Discrete Appl. Math. 35 (1992) 293-299]. To obtain this result, we prove necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a partial Steiner triple system of odd order having a leave L such that E(L)=E(G) where G is any given graph.