Block designs with v = 10, k = 5, λ = 4

It was shown by Singhi that there are 21 nonisomorphic block designs BD (10, 5; 18, 9, 4) which are residual designs of (19, 9, 4) Hadamard designs. In this paper we show that there are no other block designs with these parameters, i.e., each such design is embeddable in a symmetric design. We give a complete list of these designs and their automorphism groups.     

A Class of 2‐(3n7, 3n−17, (3n−17−1)/2) Designs

Generalized Hadamard matrices are used for the construction of a class of quasi‐residual nonresolvable BIBD's with parameters . The designs are not embeddable as residual designs into symmetric designs if n is even. The construction yields many nonisomorphic designs for every given n ≥ 2, including more than 10¹⁷ nonisomorphic 2‐(63,21,10) designs. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 15: 460–464, 2007     

Edge-coloured designs with block size four

Summary The existence of edge-coloured block designs with block size four is studied for all nonisomorphic colourings of the edges of aK ₄. There are 25 nonisomorphic edge-colouredK ₄'s; for each, we examine the existence of edge-coloured designs with the minimum possible index. Uniform cases lead to block designs, perpendicular arrays, nested Steiner triple systems, idempotent Schroeder quasigroups, and other combinatorial objects.     

Exponential number of quasi-symmetric SDP designs and codes meeting the Grey-Rankin bound

It is shown that quasi-symmetric designs which are derived or residual designs of nonisomorphic symmetric designs with the symmetric difference property are also nonisomorphic. Combined with a result by W. Kantor, this implies that the number of nonisomorphic quasi-symmetric designs with the symmetric difference property grows exponentially. The column spaces of the incidence matrices of these designs provide an exponential number of inequivalent codes meeting the Grey-Rankin bound. A transformation of quasi-symmetric designs by means of maximal arcs is described. In particular, a residual quasi-symmetric design with the symmetric difference property is transformed into a quasi-symmetric design with the same block graph but higher rank over GF(2).Dedicated to Professor Hanfried Lenz on the occasion of his 75th birthday.This paper was written while the author was at the University of Giessen as a Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, on leave from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria.     

Hadamard 2-(63,31,15) designs invariant under the dihedral group of order 10

All Hadamard 2-(63,31,15) designs invariant under the dihedral group of order 10 are constructed and classified up to isomorphism together with related Hadamard matrices of order 64. Affine 2-(64,16,5) designs can be obtained from Hadamard 2-(63,31,15) designs having line spreads by Rahilly’s construction [A. Rahilly, On the line structure of designs, Discrete Math. 92 (1991) 291-303]. The parameter set 2-(64,16,5) is one of two known sets when there exists several nonisomorphic designs with the same parameters and p-rank as the design obtained from the points and subspaces of a given dimension in affine geometry AG(n,p^m) (p a prime). It is established that an affine 2-(64,16,5) design of 2-rank 16 that is associated with a Hadamard 2-(63,31,15) design invariant under the dihedral group of order 10 is either isomorphic to the classical design of the points and hyperplanes in AG(3,4), or is one of the two exceptional designs found by Harada, Lam and Tonchev [M. Harada, C. Lam, V.D. Tonchev, Symmetric (4, 4)-nets and generalized Hadamard matrices over groups of order 4, Designs Codes Cryptogr. 34 (2005) 71-87].     

New symmetric designs and nonabelian difference sets with parameters(100, 45, 20)

Six nonisomorphic new symmetric designs with parameters (100, 45, 20) are constructed by action of the Frobenius group E₂₅ · Z₁₂. This group proves to be their full automorphism group. Its Frobenius subgroup of order 100 acts on the designs as their nonabelian Singer group. The result is presented through six nonisomorphic new nonabelian (100, 45, 20) difference sets as well. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Combin Designs 8: 291–299, 2000     

Non-skew symmetric orthogonal matrices with constant diagonals

A matrix C of order n is orthogonal if CC^T=dI. In this paper, we restrict the study to orthogonal matrices with a constant m > 1 on the diagonal and ±1's off the diagonal. It is observed that all skew symmetric orthogonal matrices of this type are constructed from skew symmetric Hadamard matrices and vice versa. Some simple necessary conditions for the existence of non-skew orthogonal matrices are derived. Two basic construction techniques for non-skew orthogonal matrices are given. Several families of non-skew orthogonal matrices are constructed by applying the basic techniques to well-known combinatorial objects like balanced incomplete block designs. It is also shown that if m is even and n=0 (mod 4), then an orthogonal matrix must be skew symmetric. The structure of a non-skew orthogonal matrix in the special case of m odd,n=2 (mod 4) and m?1/6n is also studied in detail. Finally, a list of cases with n?50 is given where the existence of non-skew orthogonal matrices are unknown.     

A family of non class-regular symmetric transversal designs of spread type

Many classes of symmetric transversal designs have been constructed from generalized Hadamard matrices and they are necessarily class regular. In (Hiramine, Des Codes Cryptogr 56:21–33, 2010) we constructed symmetric transversal designs using spreads of \mathbbZ_p²ⁿ{\mathbb{Z}_p^{2n}} with p a prime. In this article we show that most of them admit no class regular automorphism groups. This implies that they are never obtained from generalized Hadamard matrices. As far as we know, this is the first infinite family of non class-regular symmetric transversal designs.     

Some notes on integral equivalence of combinatorial matrices

Recent work on integral equivalence of Hadamard matrices and block designs is generalized in two directions. We first determine the two greatest invariants under integral equivalence of the incidence matrix of a symmetric balanced incomplete block design. This enables us to write down all the invariants in the case wherek −λ is square-fre. Some other results on the sequence of invariants are presented. Secondly we consider the existence of inequivalent Hadamard matrices under integral equivalence. We show that if there is a skew-Hadamard matrix of order 8m then there are two inequivalent Hadamard matrices of order 16m, that and there are precisely eleven inequivalent Hadamard matrices of order 32.     

Nonisomorphic solutions of (4t+3, 2t+1, t) designs

A technique has been developed to get a large number of nonisomorphic solutions of a (4t+3, 2t+1, t) design. Some results are proved on the conjecture for Hadamard matrices.     

On the maximum cocliques of the rank 3 graph of 211 : M24

In this article, we consider the maximum cocliques of the 2¹¹: M₂₄ ‐graph Λ. We show that the maximum cocliques of size 24 of Λ can be obtained from two Hadamard matrices of size 24, and that there are exactly two maximum cocliques up to equivalence. We verify that the two nonisomorphic designs with parameters 5‐(24,9,6) can be constructed from the maximum cocliques of Λ, and that these designs are isomorphic to the support designs of minimum weights of the ternary extended quadratic residue and Pless symmetry [24,12,9] codes. Further, we give a new construction of Λ from these 5‐(24,9,6) designs. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 17: 323–332, 2009     

On the asymptotic existence of Hadamard matrices

It is conjectured that Hadamard matrices exist for all orders 4t (t>0). However, despite a sustained effort over more than five decades, the strongest overall existence results are asymptotic results of the form: for all odd natural numbers k, there is a Hadamard matrix of order k²[a+blog₂k], where a and b are fixed non-negative constants. To prove the Hadamard Conjecture, it is sufficient to show that we may take a=2 and b=0. Since Seberry's ground-breaking result, which showed that we may take a=0 and b=2, there have been several improvements where b has been by stages reduced to 3/8. In this paper, we show that for all ?>0, the set of odd numbers k for which there is a Hadamard matrix of order k²2+[?log₂k] has positive density in the set of natural numbers. The proof adapts a number-theoretic argument of Erdos and Odlyzko to show that there are enough Paley Hadamard matrices to give the result.     

New proof of a theorem of Szekeres

A Hadamard matrix H of order 16t² is constructed for all t for which there is a Hadamard matrix of order 4t, in such a way that each row of H contains exactly 8t² + 2t ones. As a consequence a new method of constructing the symmetric block designs with parameters (16t², 8t² + 2t, 4t² + 2t) for all t for which there is a Hadamard matrix of order 4t is given.     

Maximal arcs in designs

An (α,n)-arc in a 2-design is a set ofn points of the design such that any block intersects it in at most α points. For such an arc,n is bounded by 1+(r(α−1)/λ), with equality if and only if every block meets the arc in either 0 or α points. An (α,n) arc with equality in above is said to be maximal. A maximal block arc can be dually defined. This generalizes the notion of an oval (α=2) in a symmetric design due to Asmus and van Lint. The aim of this paper is to study the infinite family of possibly extendable symmetric designs other than the Hadamard design family and their related designs using maximal arcs. It is shown that the extendability corresponds to the existence of a proper family of maximal arcs. A natural duality between point and block arcs is established, which among other things implies a result of Cameron and van Lint that extendability of a given design in this family is equivalent to extendability of its dual. Similar results are proved for other related designs.     

Classification of Hadamard matrices of order 44 with automorphisms of order 7

The Hadamard matrices of order 44 possessing automorphisms of order 7 are classified. The number of their equivalence classes is 384. The order of their full automorphism group is calculated. These Hadamard matrices yield 1683 nonisomorphic 3-(44,22,10) designs, 57932 nonisomorphic 2-(43,21,10) designs, and two inequivalent extremal binary self-dual doubly even codes of length 88 (one of them being new).     

Handcuffed designs

Handcuffed designs are a particular case of block designs on graphs. A handcuffed design with parameters v, k, λ consists of a system of ordered k-subsets of a v-set, called handcuffed blocks. In a block {A₁, A₂,…, A_k} each element is assumed to be handcuffed to its neighbors and the block contains k ? 1 handcuffed pairs (A₁, A₂), (A₂, A₁), …, (A_k?1, A_k). These pairs are considered unordered. The collection of handcuffed blocks constitutes a handcuffed design if the following are satisfied: (1) each element of the v-set appears amongst the blocks the same number of times (and at most once in a block) and (2) each pair of distinct elements of the v-set are handcuffed in exactly λ of the blocks. If the total number of blocks is b and each element appears in r blocks the following conditions are necessary for the handcuffed design to exist. (1) λv (v ? 1) = (k ? 1)b. (2) rv = kb. In this paper it is shown that the necessary conditions are also sufficient.     

On the existence of Hadamard matrices

Given any natural number q > 3 we show there exists an integer t ? [2log₂(q ? 3)] such that an Hadamard matrix exists for every order 2^sq where s > t. The Hadamard conjecture is that s = 2.This means that for each q there is a finite number of orders 2^υq for which an Hadamard matrix is not known. This is the first time such a statement could be made for arbitrary q.In particular it is already known that an Hadamard matrix exists for each 2^sq where if q = 2^m ? 1 then s ? m, if q = 2^m + 3 (a prime power) then s ? m, if q = 2^m + 1 (a prime power) then s ? m + 1.It is also shown that all orthogonal designs of types (a, b, m ? a ? b) and (a, b), 0 ? a + b ? m, exist in orders m = 2^t and 2^t+2 · 3, t ? 1 a positive integer.     

An existence theory for pairwise balanced designs,III: Proof of the existence conjectures

Given positive integers k and λ, balanced incomplete block designs on v points with block size k and index λ exist for all sufficiently large integers v satisfying the congruences λ(v ? 1) ≡ 0 (mod k ? 1) and λv(v ? 1) ≡ 0 (mod k(k ? 1)). Analogous results hold for pairwise balanced designs where the block sizes come from a given set K of positive integers. We also observe that the number of nonisomorphic designs on v points with given block size k > 2 and index λ tends to infinity as v increases (subject to the above congruences).     

On symmetric nets and generalized Hadamard matrices from affine designs

Symmetric nets are affine resolvable designs whose duals are also affine. It is shown that. up to isomorphism, there are exactly four symmetric (3, 3)-nets (v=b=27,k=9), and exactly two inequivalent 9×9 generalized Hadamard matrices over the group of order 3. The symmetric (3, 3)-nets are found as subnets of affine resolvable 2-(27, 9, 4) designs. Ten of the 68 non-isomorphic affine resolvable 2-(27, 9, 4) designs are not extensions of symmetric (3, 3)-subnets, providing the first examples of affine 2-(q³, q², q²–1/q–1) designs without symmetric (q, q)-subnets.     

Complex Hadamard matrices

R. J. Turyn introduced complex Hadamard matrices and showed that if there is a complex Hadamard matrix of order c and a real Hadamard matrix of order h> > 1, then there is a real Hadamard matrix of order he. Previously, complex Hadamard matrices were only known for a few small orders and the orders for which symmetric conference matrices were known. These latter are known only to exist for orders which can be written as 1+a² +b² where a, b are integers. We give many constructions for new infinite classes of complex Hadamard matrices and show that they exist for orders 306,650, 870,1406,2450 and 3782: for the orders 650, 870, 2450 and 3782, a symmetric conference matrix cannot exist.