McLaren’s improved snub cube and other new spherical designs in three dimensions

Evidence is presented to suggest that, in three dimensions, spherical 6-designs withN points exist forN=24, 26,≥28; 7-designs forN=24, 30, 32, 34,≥36; 8-designs forN=36, 40, 42,≥44; 9-designs forN=48, 50, 52,≥54; 10-designs forN=60, 62, ≥64; 11-designs forN=70, 72,≥74; and 12-designs forN=84,≥86. The existence of some of these designs is established analytically, while others are given by very accurate numerical coordinates. The 24-point 7-design was first found by McLaren in 1963, and—although not identified as such by McLaren—consists of the vertices of an “improved” snub cube, obtained from Archimedes' regular snub cube (which is only a 3-design) by slightly shrinking each square face and expanding each triangular face. 5-designs with 23 and 25 points are presented which, taken together with earlier work of Reznick, show that 5 designs exist forN=12, 16, 18, 20,≥22. It is conjectured, albeit with decreasing confidence fort≥9, that these lists oft-designs are complete and that no other exist. One of the constructions gives a sequence of putative sphericalt-designs withN=12m points (m≥2) whereN=1/2t ²(1+o(1)) ast→∞.     

Infinite families of 2- and 3-designs with parameters v = p + 1, k = (p − 1)/2i + 1, where p odd prime, 2e T (p − 1), e ≥ 2, 1 ≤ i ≤ e

Let p be an odd prime number such that p − 1 = 2^em for some odd m and e ≥ 2. In this article, by using the special linear fractional group PSL(2, p), for each i, 1 ≤ i ≤ e, except particular cases, we construct a 2-design with parameters v = p + 1, k = (p − 1)/2ⁱ + 1 and λ = ((p − 1)/2ⁱ+1)(p − 1)/2 = k(p − 1)/2, and in the case i = e we show that some of these 2-designs are 3-designs. Likewise, by using the linear fractional group PGL(2,p) we construct an infinite family of 3-designs with the same v k and λ = k(k − 2). These supplement a part of [4], in which we gave an infinite family of 3-designs with parameters v = q + 1, k = (q + 1)/2 = (q − 1)/2 + 1 and λ = (q + 1)(q − 3)/8 = k(k − 2)/2, where q is a prime power such that q − 1 = 2m for some odd m and q > 7. Some of the designs given in this article and in [4] fill in a few blanks in the table of Chee, Colbourn, and Kreher [2]. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Designs with block-size 6 in projective planes of characteristic 2

We construct simple 3-designs and 4-designs of block-size 6 in the classical projective planesPG(2,q),q a power of 2. All of our designs are invariant under the projective groupPGL(3,q). Aside from several infinite series of 3-designs we get some relatively small designs of independent interest, e.g. designs with parameters 4-(21, 6, 16) and 4-(73, 6, 330) defined in the planes of orders 4 and 8, respectively.     

On the structure of 1-designs with at most two block intersection numbers

We introduce the notion of an unrefinable decomposition of a 1-design with at most two block intersection numbers, which is a certain decomposition of the 1-designs collection of blocks into other 1-designs. We discover an infinite family of 1-designs with at most two block intersection numbers that each have a unique unrefinable decomposition, and we give a polynomial-time algorithm to compute an unrefinable decomposition for each such design from the family. Combinatorial designs from this family include: finite projective planes of order n; SOMAs, and more generally, partial linear spaces of order (s, t) on (s + 1)² points; as well as affine designs, and more generally, strongly resolvable designs with no repeated blocks.      

Optimal constant weight covering codes and nonuniform group divisible 3-designs with block size four

Let K _q (n, w, t, d) be the minimum size of a code over Z _q of length n, constant weight w, such that every word with weight t is within Hamming distance d of at least one codeword. In this article, we determine K _q (n, 4, 3, 1) for all n ≥ 4, q = 3, 4 or q = 2 ^m  + 1 with m ≥ 2, leaving the only case (q, n) = (3, 5) in doubt. Our construction method is mainly based on the auxiliary designs, H-frames, which play a crucial role in the recursive constructions of group divisible 3-designs similar to that of candelabra systems in the constructions of 3-wise balanced designs. As an application of this approach, several new infinite classes of nonuniform group divisible 3-designs with block size four are also constructed.     

On divisible designs and local algebras

We study the action of the group PGL(m,A) on the projective space PG(m − 1,A) over a finite commutative local algebra A in order to construct a class of divisible designs, denoted by D_m(d,A), which is the classical one of 2-designs (of points and of flats of fixed projective dimension) in the case where A is a field. We also study the constructed divisible designs with particular care for the case where d = m − 1. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The Coulomb energy of spherical designs on <Emphasis Type="Italic">S</Emphasis><Superscript>2</Superscript>

In this work we give upper bounds for the Coulomb energy of a sequence of well separated spherical n-designs, where a spherical n-design is a set of m points on the unit sphere S ² ⊂ ℝ³ that gives an equal weight cubature rule (or equal weight numerical integration rule) on S ² which is exact for spherical polynomials of degree ⩽ n. (A sequence Ξ of m-point spherical n-designs X on S ² is said to be well separated if there exists a constant λ > 0 such that for each m-point spherical n-design X ∈ Ξ the minimum spherical distance between points is bounded from below by .) In particular, if the sequence of well separated spherical designs is such that m and n are related by m = O(n ²), then the Coulomb energy of each m-point spherical n-design has an upper bound with the same first term and a second term of the same order as the bounds for the minimum energy of point sets on S ². Dedicated to Edward B. Saff on the occasion of his 60th birthday.     

A construction of 2-designs from Steiner systems and extendable designs

We give a construction of a 2-(mn²+1,mn,(n+1)(mn−1)) design starting from a Steiner system S(2,m+1,mn²+1) and an affine plane of order n. This construction is applied to known classes of Steiner systems arising from affine and projective geometries, Denniston designs, and unitals. We also consider the extendability of these designs to 3-designs.     

旗传递5-(v,k,2)设计的分类

本文研究了5-(v,k,2)设计的分类问题.利用典型群PSL(2,q)的子群作用于投影线的轨道定理,证明了旗传递5-(v,k,2)设计的自同构群的基柱不能与PSL(2,3n)同构.从而证明了不存在旗传递的5-(v,k,2)设计.     

Resolvable t-Designs

A general group theoretic approach is used to find resolvable designs. Infinitely many resolvable 3-designs are obtained where each is block transitive under some PSL(2, p ^f ) or PGL(2, p ^f ). Some known Steiner 5-designs are assembled from such resolvable 3-designs such that they are also resolvable. We give some visualizations of Steiner systems which make resolvability obvious.     

Infinite families of 3-designs from a type of five-weight code

It has been known for a long time that t-designs can be employed to construct both linear and nonlinear codes and that the codewords of a fixed weight in a code may hold a t-design. While a lot of progress in the direction of constructing codes from t-designs has been made, only a small amount of work on the construction of t-designs from codes has been done. The objective of this paper is to construct infinite families of 2-designs and 3-designs from a type of binary linear codes with five weights. The total number of 2-designs and 3-designs obtained in this paper are exponential in any odd m and the block size of the designs varies in a huge range.     

Construction of spherical t-designs

Spherical t-designs are Chebyshev-type averaging sets on the d-dimensional unit sphere S ^d–1, that are exact for polynomials of degree at most t. The concept of such designs was introduced by Delsarte, Goethals and Seidel in 1977. The existence of spherical t-designs for every t and d was proved by Seymour and Zaslavsky in 1984. Although some sporadic examples are known, no general construction has been given. In this paper we give an explicit construction of spherical t-designs on S ^d–1 containing N points, for every t,d and N,NN ₀, where N ₀ = C(d)t ^{O(d 3}).     

The classification of flag-transitive Steiner 4-designs

Among the properties of homogeneity of incidence structures flag-transitivity obviously is a particularly important and natural one. Consequently, in the last decades flag-transitive Steinert-designs (i.e. flag-transitive t-(v,k,1) designs) have been investigated, whereas only by the use of the classification of the finite simple groups has it been possible in recent years to essentially characterize all flag-transitive Steiner 2-designs. However, despite the finite simple group classification, for Steiner t-designs with parameters t > 2 such characterizations have remained challenging open problems for about 40 years (cf. [11, p. 147] and [12 p. 273], but presumably dating back to around 1965). The object of the present paper is to give a complete classification of all flag-transitive Steiner 4-designs. Our result relies on the classification of the finite doubly transitive permutation groups and is a continuation of the author's work [20, 21] on the classification of all flag-transitive Steiner 3-designs. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 51E10 . Secondary 05B05 . 20B25     

Constructions of Spherical 3-Designs

 Spherical t-designs are Chebyshev-type averaging sets on the d-sphere which are exact for polynomials of degree at most t. This concept was introduced in 1977 by Delsarte, Goethals, and Seidel, who also found the minimum possible size of such designs, in particular, that the number of points in a 3-design on S ^d must be at least . In this paper we give explicit constructions for spherical 3-designs on S ^d consisting of n points for d=1 and ; d=2 and ; d=3 and ; d=4 and ; and odd or even. We also provide some evidence that 3-designs of other sizes do not exist. We will introduce and apply a concept from additive number theory generalizing the classical Sidon-sequences. Namely, we study sets of integers S for which the congruence mod n, where and , only holds in the trivial cases. We call such sets Sidon-type sets of strength t, and denote their maximum cardinality by s(n, t). We find a lower bound for s(n, 3), and show how Sidon-type sets of strength 3 can be used to construct spherical 3-designs. We also conjecture that our lower bound gives the true value of s(n, 3) (this has been verified for n≤125). Received: June 19, 1996     

The spectrum of additive BIB designs

In this article, the existence of additive BIB designs is discussed with direct and recursive constructions, together with investigation of a property of resolvability. Such designs can be used to construct infinite families of BIB designs. In particular, we obtain a series of B(sⁿ, ts^m, λt (ts^m ? 1) (s^n‐m ? 1)/[2(s^m ? 1)]) for any positive integer λ, such that sⁿ (sⁿ ? 1) λ ≡ 0 (mod s^m (s^m ? 1) and for any positive integer t with 2 ≤ t ≤ s^n‐m, where s is an odd prime power. Connections between additive BIB designs and other combinatorial objects such as multiply nested designs and perpendicular arrays are discussed. A construction of resolvable BIB designs with v = 4k is also proposed. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 15: 235–254, 2007     

On antipodal Euclidean tight (2e + 1)-designs

Neumaier and Seidel (1988) generalized the concept of spherical designs and defined Euclidean designs in ℝ ⁿ . For an integer t, a finite subset X of ℝ ⁿ given together with a weight function w is a Euclidean t-design if holds for any polynomial f(x) of deg(f)≤ t, where {S _i , 1≤ i ≤ p} is the set of all the concentric spheres centered at the origin that intersect with X, X _i = X∩ S _i , and w:X→ ℝ_{> 0}. (The case of X⊂ S ⁿ⁻¹ with w≡ 1 on X corresponds to a spherical t-design.) In this paper we study antipodal Euclidean (2e+1)-designs. We give some new examples of antipodal Euclidean tight 5-designs. We also give the classification of all antipodal Euclidean tight 3-designs, the classification of antipodal Euclidean tight 5-designs supported by 2 concentric spheres.     

3-Designs from the Z 4-Goethals Codes via a New Kloosterman Sum Identity

Recently, active research has been performed on constructing t-designs from linear codes over Z ₄. In this paper, we will construct a new simple 3 – (2 ^m , 7, 14/3 (2 ^m – 8)) design from codewords of Hamming weight 7 in the Z ₄-Goethals code for odd m 5. For 3 arbitrary positions, we will count the number of codewords of Hamming weight 7 whose support includes those 3 positions. This counting can be simplified by using the double-transitivity of the Goethals code and divided into small cases. It turns out interestingly that, in almost all cases, this count is related to the value of a Kloosterman sum. As a result, we can also prove a new Kloosterman sum identity while deriving the 3-design.     

A census of highly symmetric combinatorial designs

As a consequence of the classification of the finite simple groups, it has been possible in recent years to characterize Steiner t-designs, that is t-(v,k,1) designs, mainly for t=2, admitting groups of automorphisms with sufficiently strong symmetry properties. However, despite the finite simple group classification, for Steiner t-designs with t>2 most of these characterizations have remained long-standing challenging problems. Especially, the determination of all flag-transitive Steiner t-designs with 3≤t≤6 is of particular interest and has been open for about 40 years (cf. Delandtsheer (Geom. Dedicata 41, p. 147, 1992 and Handbook of Incidence Geometry, Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, 1995, p. 273), but presumably dating back to 1965). The present paper continues the author’s work (see Huber (J. Comb. Theory Ser. A 94, 180–190, 2001; Adv. Geom. 5, 195–221, 2005; J. Algebr. Comb., 2007, to appear)) of classifying all flag-transitive Steiner 3-designs and 4-designs. We give a complete classification of all flag-transitive Steiner 5-designs and prove furthermore that there are no non-trivial flag-transitive Steiner 6-designs. Both results rely on the classification of the finite 3-homogeneous permutation groups. Moreover, we survey some of the most general results on highly symmetric Steiner t-designs.      

Designs in Product Association Schemes

A number of important families of association schemes—such as the Hamming and Johnson schemes—enjoy the property that, in each member of the family, Delsarte t-designs can be characterised combinatorially as designs in a certain partially ordered set attached to the scheme. In this paper, we extend this characterisation to designs in a product association scheme each of whose components admits a characterisation of the above type. As a consequence of our main result, we immediately obtain linear programming bounds for a wide variety of combinatorial objects as well as bounds on the size and degree of such designs analogous to Delsarte's bounds for t-designs in Q-polynomial association schemes.     

A class of Steiner 4-wise balanced designs derived from preparata codes

The minimum weight codewords in the Preparata code of length n = 4^m are utilized for the construction of an infinite family of Steiner S(4, {5, 6}, 4^m + 1) designs for any m ≥ 2. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.