Degree‐ and Orbit‐Balanced Γ‐Designs When Γ Has Five Vertices

A Γ‐design of the complete graph is a set of subgraphs isomorphic to Γ (blocks) whose edge‐sets partition the edge‐set of . is balanced if the number of blocks containing x is the same number of blocks containing y for any two vertices x and y. is orbit‐balanced, or strongly balanced, if the number of blocks containing x as a vertex of a vertex‐orbit A of Γ is the same number of blocks containing y as a vertex of A, for any two vertices x and y and for every vertex‐orbit A of Γ. We say that is degree‐balanced if the number of blocks containing x as a vertex of degree d in Γ is the same number of blocks containing y as a vertex of degree d in Γ, for any two vertices x and y and for every degree d in Γ. An orbit‐balanced Γ‐design is also degree‐balanced; a degree‐balanced Γ‐design is also balanced. The converse is not always true. We study the spectrum for orbit‐balanced, degree‐balanced, and balanced Γ‐designs of when Γ is a graph with five vertices, none of which is isolated. We also study the existence of balanced (respectively, degree‐balanced) Γ‐designs of which are not degree‐balanced (respectively, not orbit‐balanced).