Existence of Perfect 4-Deletion-Correcting Codes with Length Six

By a T^*(2, k, v)-code we mean a perfect4-deletion-correcting code of length 6 over an alphabet of size v, which is capable of correcting anycombination of up to 4 deletions and/or insertions of letters that occur in transmission of codewords. Thethird author (DCC Vol. 23, No. 1) presented a combinatorial construction for such codes and prove thata T^*(2, 6, v)-code exists for all positive integers v 3 (mod 5), with 12 possible exceptions of v. In this paper, the notion of a directedgroup divisible quasidesign is introduced and used to show that a T^*(2, 6,v)-code exists for all positive integers v 3 (mod 5), except possiblyfor v {173, 178, 203, 208}. The 12 missing cases for T^*(2,6, v)-codes with v 3 (mod 5) are also provided, thereby the existenceproblem for T^*(2, 6, v)-codes is almost complete.