Frame Self-orthogonal Mendelsohn Triple Systems

A Mendelsohn triple system of order ν, MTS(ν) for short, is a pair (X, B) where X is a ν-set (of points) and B is a collection of cyclic triples on X such that every ordered pair of distinct points from X appears in exactly one cyclic triple of B. The cyclic triple (a, b, c) contains the ordered pairs (a, b), (b, c) and (c, a). An MTS(ν) corresponds to an idempotent semisymmetric Latin square (quasigroup) of order ν. An MTS(ν) is called frame self-orthogonal, FSOMTS for short, if its associated semisymmetric Latin square is frame self-orthogonal. It is known that an FSOMTS(1 ⁿ ) exists for all n≡1 (mod 3) except n=10 and for all n≥15, n≡0 (mod 3) with possible exception that n=18. In this paper, it is shown that (i) an FSOMTS(2 ⁿ ) exists if and only if n≡0,1 (mod 3) and n>5 with possible exceptions n∈{9, 27, 33, 39}; (ii) an FSOMTS(3 ⁿ ) exists if and only if n≥4, with possible exceptions that n∈{6, 14, 18, 19}. *Research supported by NSFC 10371002 *Partially supported by National Science Foundation under Grant CCR-0098093