Latin squares with pairwise orthogonal conjugates

Let L¹ denote the set of integers n such that there exists an idempotent Latin square of order n with all of its conjugates distinct and pairwise orthogonal. It is known that L¹ contains all sufficiently large integers. That is, there is a smallest integer n_o such that L¹ contains all integers greater than n_o. However, no upper bound for n_o has been given and the term “sufficiently large” is unspecified. The main purpose of this paper is to establish a concrete upper bound for n_o. In particular it is shown that L¹ contain all integers n>5594, with the possible exception of n=6810.     

A polyominoes-permutations injection and tree-like convex polyominoes

Plane polyominoes are edge-connected sets of cells on the orthogonal lattice Z², considered identical if their cell sets are equal up to an integral translation. We introduce a novel injection from the set of polyominoes with n cells to the set of permutations of [n], and classify the families of convex polyominoes and tree-like convex polyominoes as classes of permutations that avoid some sets of forbidden patterns. By analyzing the structure of the respective permutations of the family of tree-like convex polyominoes, we are able to find the generating function of the sequence that enumerates this family, conclude that this sequence satisfies the linear recurrence an=6an−1−14an−2+16an−3−9an−4+2an−5, and compute the closed-form formula an=²n+2−(n³−n²+10n+4)/2.     

A diophantine problem concerning cubes

This paper deals with the problem of finding n integers such that their pairwise sums are cubes. We obtain eight integers, expressed in parametric terms, such that all the six pairwise sums of four of these integers are cubes, 9 of the 10 pairwise sums of five of these integers are cubes, 12 pairwise sums of six of these integers are cubes, 15 pairwise sums of seven of these integers are cubes and 18 pairwise sums of all the eight integers are cubes. This leads to infinitely many examples of four positive integers such that all of their six pairwise sums are cubes. Further, for any arbitrary positive integer n, we obtain a set of 2(n+1) integers, in parametric terms, such that 5n+1 of the pairwise sums of these integers are cubes. With a choice of parameters, we can obtain examples with 5n+2 of the pairwise sums being cubes.     

Maximal sets of permutations constructed from projective planes

On the set of n²+n+1 points of a projective plane, a set of n²+n+1 permutations is constructed with the property that any two are a Hamming distance 2n+1 apart. Another set is constructed in which every pair are a Hamming distance not greater than 2n+1 apart. Both sets are maximal with respect to the stated property.     

Pairwise Balanced Designs with Prescribed Minimum Dimension

The dimension of a linear space is the maximum positive integer d such that any d of its points generate a proper subspace. For a set K of integers at least two, recall that a pairwise balanced design $\operatorname{PBD}(v,K)$ is a linear space on v points whose lines (or blocks) have sizes belonging to K. We show that, for any prescribed set of sizes K and lower bound d on the dimension, there exists a $\operatorname{PBD}(v,K)$ of dimension at least d for all sufficiently large and numerically admissible v.     

On integers of the forms k−2 and k2+1

In this paper we prove that if (r,12)?3, then the set of positive odd integers k such that k^r−2ⁿ has at least two distinct prime factors for all positive integers n contains an infinite arithmetic progression. The same result corresponding to k^r2ⁿ+1 is also true.     

Density of sets of natural numbers and the Lévy group

Let N denote the set of positive integers. The asymptotic density of the set A⊆N is d(A)=limn→∞|A∩[1,n]|/n, if this limit exists. Let AD denote the set of all sets of positive integers that have asymptotic density, and let SN denote the set of all permutations of the positive integers N. The group L^? consists of all permutations f∈SN such that A∈AD if and only if f(A)∈AD, and the group L^* consists of all permutations f∈L^? such that d(f(A))=d(A) for all A∈AD. Let be a one-to-one function such that d(f(N))=1 and, if A∈AD, then f(A)∈AD. It is proved that f must also preserve density, that is, d(f(A))=d(A) for all A∈AD. Thus, the groups L^? and L^* coincide.     

On t-distance sets of (0, ±1)-vectors

We consider sets of (0, +1)-vectors in R ⁿ, having exactly s non-zero positions. In some cases we give best or nearly best possible bounds for the maximal number of such vectors if all the pairwise scalar products belong to a fixed set D of integers. The investigated cases include D={ -d, d}, which corresponds to equiangular lines.     

Terseness: Minimal idempotent generating sets for K(n,r)

Let n and r be positive integers with 1 < r < n and let K(n,r) consist of all transformations on X _n = {1,...,n} having image size less than or equal to r. For 1 < r < n, there exist rank-r elements of K(n,r) which are not the product of two rank-r idempotents. With this limitation in mind, we prove that for fixed r, and for all n large enough relative to r, that there exists a minimal idempotent generating set U of K(n,r) such that all rank-r elements of K(n,r) are contained in U ³. Moreover, for all n > r > 1, there exists a minimal idempotent generating set W for K(n,r) such that not every rank-r element is contained in W ³.     

Midwest cousins of Barnes-Wall lattices

Given a rational lattice and suitable set of linear transformations, we construct a cousin lattice. Sufficient conditions are given for integrality, evenness and unimodularity. When the input is a Barnes-Wall lattice, we get multi-parameter series of cousins. There is a subseries consisting of unimodular lattices which have ranks ²d−1±²d−k−1, for odd integers d?3 and integers . Their minimum norms are moderately high: .     

Sharp Bounds on Geometric Permutations of Pairwise Disjoint Balls in R d

We prove that the maximum number of geometric permutations, induced by line transversals to a collection of n pairwise disjoint balls in \R ^d , is Θ (n ^d-1 ) . This improves substantially the upper bound of O(n ^2d-2 ) known for general convex sets [9]. We show that the maximum number of geometric permutations of a sufficiently large collection of pairwise disjoint unit disks in the plane is two, improving the previous upper bound of three given in [5]. Received September 21, 1998, and in revised form March 14, 1999.     

On two classes of permutations with number-theoretic conditions on the lengths of the cycles

Let Λ be an arbitrary set of positive integers andS _n (Λ) the set of all permutations of degreen for which the lengths of all cycles belong to the set Λ. In the paper the asymptotics of the ratio |S _n (Λ)|/n! asn→∞ is studied in the following cases: 1) Λ is the union of finitely many arithmetic progressions, 2) Λ consists of all positive integers that are not divisible by any number from a given finite set of pairwise coprime positive integers. Here |S _n (Λ)| stands for the number of elements in the finite setS _n (Λ). Translated fromMatematicheskie Zametki, Vol. 62, No. 6, pp. 881–891, December, 1997. Translated by A. I. Shtern     

A combinatorial problem involving graphs and matrices

In this paper we discuss a combinatorial problem involving graphs and matrices. Our problem is a matrix analogue of the classical problem of finding a system of distinct representatives (transversal) of a family of sets and relates closely to an extremal problem involving 1-factors and a long standing conjecture in the dimension theory of partially ordered sets. For an integer n ?1, let n denote the n element set {1,2,3,…, n}. Then let A be a k×t matrix. We say that A satisfies property P(n, k) when the following condition is satisfied: For every k-taple (x₁,x₂,…,x_k?n^k there exist k distinct integers j₁,j₂,…,j_k so that x_i= a_ii for i= 1,2,…,k. The minimum value of t for which there exists a k × t matrix A satisfying property P(n,k) is denoted by f(n,k). For each k?1 and n sufficiently large, we give an explicit formula for f(n, k): for each n?1 and k sufficiently large, we use probabilistic methods to provide inequalities for f(n,k).     

Characterization of the absence of a spectral gapfor a class of periodic Jacobi operators

Let q ∈ {2, 3} and let 0 = s₀ < s₁ < … < s_q = T be integers. For m, n ∈ Z, we put ¯m,n = {j ∈ Z| m? j ? n}. We set l_j = s_j − s_j−1 for j ∈ 1, q. Given (p₁,, p_q) ∈ R^q, let b: Z → R be a periodic function of period T such that b(·) = p_j on s_j−1 + 1, s_j for each j ∈ 1, q. We study the spectral gaps of the Jacobi operator (Ju)(n) = u(n + 1) + u(n − 1) + b(n)u(n) acting on l²(Z). By [λ_2j , λ_2j−1] we denote the jth band of the spectrum of J counted from above for j ∈ 1, T. Suppose that p_m ≠ p_n for m ≠ n. We prove that the statements (i) and (ii) below are equivalent for λ ∈ R and i ∈ 1, T − 1.     

On the largest size of a partition that is both s-core and t-core

Text

Let s,t be relatively prime positive integers. We prove a conjecture of Aukerman, Kane and Sze regarding the largest size of a partition that is simultaneously s-core and t-core by solving an equivalent problem concerning sets S of positive integers with the property that for n∈S, n−s∈S whenever n?s and n−t∈S whenever n?t.

Video

For a video summary of this paper, please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1OEug8LryU.     

Constructing MSTD sets using bidirectional ballot sequences

A more sums than differences (MSTD) set is a finite subset S of the integers such that |S+S|>|S−S|. We construct a new dense family of MSTD subsets of {0,1,2,…,n−1}. Our construction gives Θ(n²/n) MSTD sets, improving the previous best construction with Ω(n²/n⁴) MSTD sets by Miller, Orosz, and Scheinerman.     

A Turán-type inequality for the gamma function

We prove that the following Turán-type inequality holds for Euler's gamma function. For all odd integers n?1 and real numbers x>0 we have

α?Γ(n−1)(x)Γ(n+1)(x)−Γ(n)²(x),     

Distribution of exponential functions with squarefull exponent in residue rings

For a real x ≥ 1 we denote by S[x] the set of squarefull integers n ≤x, that is, the set of positive integers n ≤ such that l²|n for any prime divisor l|n. We estimate exponential sums of the form

     

Quasi-convex sequences in the circle and the 3-adic integers

In this paper, we present families of quasi-convex sequences converging to zero in the circle group T, and the group J₃ of 3-adic integers. These sequences are determined by increasing sequences of integers. For an increasing sequence , put gn=an+1−an. We prove that

(a)

the set {0}∪{±³−(an+1)|n∈N} is quasi-convex in T if and only if a₀>0 and gn>1 for every n∈N;

(b)

the set {0}∪{±an³|n∈N} is quasi-convex in the group J₃ of 3-adic integers if and only if gn>1 for every n∈N.

Moreover, we solve an open problem from [D. Dikranjan, L. de Leo, Countably infinite quasi-convex sets in some locally compact abelian groups, Topology Appl. 157 (8) (2010) 1347-1356] providing a complete characterization of the sequences such that {0}∪{±²−(an+1)|n∈N} is quasi-convex in T. Using this result, we also obtain a characterization of the sequences such that the set {0}∪{±²−(an+1)|n∈N} is quasi-convex in R.     

Simultaneous rational approximation to the successive powers of a real number

Let n be an integer ≥ 1 and let θ be a real number which is not an algebraic number of degree ≤ [n/2]. We show that there exist ? > 0 and arbitrary large real numbers X such that the system of linear inequalities |x₀| ≤ X and |x₀θ^j − x_j| ≤ ?X^−1/[n/2] for 1 < j < n, has only the zero solution in rational integers x₀,…, x_n. This result refines a similar statement due to H. Davenport and W. M. Schmidt, where the upper integer part [n/2] is replaced everywhere by the integer part [n/2]. As a corollary, we improve slightly the exponent of approximation to 0 by algebraic integers of degree n + 1 over Q obtained by these authors.