Small Kakeya sets in non-prime order planes

The finite field analog of the classical Kakeya problem asks the smallest possible size for a set of points in the Desarguesian affine plane which contains a line in every direction. This problem has been definitively solved by Blokhuis and Mazzocca (2008), who show that in $AG(2,s)$, $s$ a prime power, the smallest possible size of such a set is $\frac{1}{2}s(s+1)$. In this paper we examine a new construction of an infinite family of sets in $AG(2,s)$ containing a line in every direction, where $s=q^e$ with $q$ a prime power and $e$ an integer with $e>1$. These sets have size $\frac{1}{2}{q}^{2e}+O\left(q^{2e-1}\right)$, which is small in the sense that the lower bound is also $\frac{1}{2}{q}^{2e}$ plus smaller order terms. In addition, we discuss the minimality of our sets, showing that they contain no proper subset containing a line in every direction.     

Dense uniform hypergraphs have high list chromatic number

The first author showed that the list chromatic number of every graph with average degree $d$ is at least $(0.5?o\left(1\right)){log}_{2}d$. We prove that for $r\ge 3$, every $r$-uniform hypergraph in which at least half of the $(r?1)$-vertex subsets are contained in at least $d$ edges has list chromatic number at least $\frac{lnd}{100r^3}$. When $r$ is fixed, this is sharp up to a constant factor.     

On constructing normal and non-normal Cayley graphs

Bamberg and Giudici (2011) showed that the point graphs of certain generalised quadrangles of order $(q?1,q+1)$, where $q=p^k$ is a prime power with $p\ge 5$, are both normal and non-normal Cayley graphs for two isomorphic groups. We call these graphs BG-graphs. In this paper, we show that the Cayley graphs obtained from a finite number of BG-graphs by Cartesian product, direct product, and strong product also possess the property of being normal and non-normal Cayley graphs for two isomorphic groups.     

Powerful numbers in (1ℓ + qℓ)(2ℓ + qℓ)⋯(nℓ + qℓ)

Let q be a positive integer. Recently, Niu and Liu proved that, if $n\ge \max ?\{q,1198?q\}$, then the product $(1^3+q^3)(2^3+q^3)?(n^3+q^3)$ is not a powerful number. In this note, we prove (1) that, for any odd prime power ? and $n\ge \max ?\{q,11?q\}$, the product $(1^{?}+q^{?})(2^{?}+q^{?})?(n^{?}+q^{?})$ is not a powerful number, and (2) that, for any positive odd integer ?, there exists an integer $N_{q,?}$ such that, for any positive integer $n\ge N_{q,?}$, the product $(1^{?}+q^{?})(2^{?}+q^{?})?(n^{?}+q^{?})$ is not a powerful number.     

On some cycles in linearized Wenger graphs

Let ${\mathbb{F}}_q$ be the finite field of $q$ elements for prime power $q$ and let $p$ be the character of ${\mathbb{F}}_q$. For any positive integer $m$, the linearized Wenger graph $L_m\left(q\right)$ is defined as follows: it is a bipartite graph with the vertex partitions being two copies of the $(m+1)$-dimensional vector space ${\mathbb{F}}_q^{m+1}$, and two vertices $p=\left(p\left(1\right),\dots ,p(m+1)\right)$ and $l=\left[l\left(1\right),\dots ,l(m+1)\right]$ being adjacent if $p\left(i\right)+l\left(i\right)=p\left(1\right){\left(l\left(1\right)\right)}^{p^{i?2}}$, for all $i=2,3,\dots ,m+1$. In this paper, we show that for any positive integers $m$ and $k$ with $3\le k\le p^2$, $L_m\left(q\right)$ contains even cycles of length $2k$ which is an open problem put forward by Cao et al. (2015).     

List r-hued chromatic number of graphs with bounded maximum average degrees

For integers $k,r>0$, a $(k,r)$-coloring of a graph $G$ is a proper coloring $c$ with at most $k$ colors such that for any vertex $v$ with degree $d\left(v\right)$, there are at least min$\{d\left(v\right),r\}$ different colors present at the neighborhood of $v$. The $r$-hued chromatic number of $G$, ${\chi }_r\left(G\right)$, is the least integer $k$ such that a $(k,r)$-coloring of $G$ exists. The list$r$-hued chromatic number${\chi }_{L,r}\left(G\right)$ of $G$ is similarly defined. Thus if $\Delta \left(G\right)\ge r$, then ${\chi }_{L,r}\left(G\right)\ge {\chi }_r\left(G\right)\ge r+1$. We present examples to show that, for any sufficiently large integer $r$, there exist graphs with maximum average degree less than 3 that cannot be $(r+1,r)$-colored. We prove that, for any fraction $q<\frac{14}{5}$, there exists an integer $R=R\left(q\right)$ such that for each $r\ge R$, every graph $G$ with maximum average degree $q$ is list $(r+1,r)$-colorable. We present examples to show that for some $r$ there exist graphs with maximum average degree less than 4 that cannot be $r$-hued colored with less than $\frac{3r}{2}$ colors. We prove that, for any sufficiently small real number $?>0$, there exists an integer $h=h\left(?\right)$ such that every graph $G$ with maximum average degree $4??$ satisfies ${\chi }_{L,r}\left(G\right)\le r+h\left(?\right)$. These results extend former results in Bonamy et al. (2014).     

Construction of quasi-cyclic self-dual codes

There is a one-to-one correspondence between ?-quasi-cyclic codes over a finite field ${\mathbb{F}}_q$ and linear codes over a ring $R={\mathbb{F}}_q[Y]/(Y^m?1)$. Using this correspondence, we prove that every ?-quasi-cyclic self-dual code of length m? over a finite field ${\mathbb{F}}_q$ can be obtained by the building-up construction, provided that $\mathrm{char}({\mathbb{F}}_q)=2$ or $q\equiv 1(\mathrm{mod}4)$, m is a prime p, and q is a primitive element of ${\mathbb{F}}_p$. We determine possible weight enumerators of a binary ?-quasi-cyclic self-dual code of length p? (with p a prime) in terms of divisibility by p. We improve the result of Bonnecaze et al. (2003) [3] by constructing new binary cubic (i.e., ?-quasi-cyclic codes of length 3?) optimal self-dual codes of lengths $30,36,42,48$ (Type I), 54 and 66. We also find quasi-cyclic optimal self-dual codes of lengths 40, 50, and 60. When $m=5$, we obtain a new 8-quasi-cyclic self-dual $[40,20,12]$ code over ${\mathbb{F}}_3$ and a new 6-quasi-cyclic self-dual $[30,15,10]$ code over ${\mathbb{F}}_4$. When $m=7$, we find a new 4-quasi-cyclic self-dual $[28,14,9]$ code over ${\mathbb{F}}_4$ and a new 6-quasi-cyclic self-dual $[42,21,12]$ code over ${\mathbb{F}}_4$.     

Primitive idempotents of irreducible cyclic codes and self-dual cyclic codes over Galois rings

Let $R$ be the Galois ring $GR(p^k,s)$ of characteristic $p^k$ and cardinality $p^{sk}$. Firstly, we give all primitive idempotent generators of irreducible cyclic codes of length $n$ over $R$, and a $p$-adic integer ring with $gcd(p,n)=1$. Secondly, we obtain all primitive idempotents of all irreducible cyclic codes of length $r{l}^m$ over $R$, where $r,l,$ and $t$ are three primes with $2?l$, $r|(q^t?1)$, $l^v\parallel (q^t?1)$ and $gcd(rl,q(q?1))=1$. Finally, as applications, weight distributions of all irreducible cyclic codes for $t=2$ and generator polynomials of self-dual cyclic codes of length $l^m$ and $r{l}^m$ over $R$ are given.     

Mappings of Butson-type Hadamard matrices

A $\mathrm{BH}(q,n)$ Butson-type Hadamard matrix $H$ is an $n\times n$ matrix over the complex $q$th roots of unity that fulfils $H{H}^1=n{I}_n$. It is well known that a $\mathrm{BH}(4,n)$ matrix can be used to construct a $\mathrm{BH}(2,2n)$ matrix, that is, a real Hadamard matrix. This method is here generalised to construct a $\mathrm{BH}(q,pn)$ matrix from a $\mathrm{BH}(pq,n)$ matrix, where $q$ has at most two distinct prime divisors, one of them being $p$. Moreover, an algorithm for finding the domain of the mapping from its codomain in the case $p=q=2$ is developed and used to classify the $\mathrm{BH}(4,16)$ matrices from a classification of the $\mathrm{BH}(2,32)$ matrices.     

Distant sum distinguishing index of graphs

Consider a positive integer $r$ and a graph $G=(V,E)$ with maximum degree $\Delta$ and without isolated edges. The least $k$ so that a proper edge colouring $c:E\to \{1,2,\dots ,k\}$ exists such that ${\sum }_{e?u}c\left(e\right)\ne {\sum }_{e?v}c\left(e\right)$ for every pair of distinct vertices $u,v$ at distance at most $r$ in $G$ is denoted by ${\chi }_{\Sigma ,r}^{\prime }\left(G\right)$. For $r=1$, it has been proved that ${\chi }_{\Sigma ,1}^{\prime }\left(G\right)=(1+o\left(1\right))\Delta$. For any $r\ge 2$ in turn an infinite family of graphs is known with ${\chi }_{\Sigma ,r}^{\prime }\left(G\right)=\Omega \left({\Delta }^{r?1}\right)$. We prove that, on the other hand, ${\chi }_{\Sigma ,r}^{\prime }\left(G\right)=O\left({\Delta }^{r?1}\right)$ for $r\ge 2$. In particular, we show that ${\chi }_{\Sigma ,r}^{\prime }\left(G\right)\le 6{\Delta }^{r?1}$ if $r\ge 4$.     

A note on panchromatic colorings

This paper studies the quantity $p(n,r)$, that is the minimal number of edges of an $n$-uniform hypergraph without panchromatic coloring (it means that every edge meets every color) in $r$ colors. If $r\le c\frac{n}{lnn}$ then all bounds have a type $A_1(n,lnn,r){\left(\frac{r}{r?1}\right)}^n\le p(n,r)\le A_2(n,r,lnr){\left(\frac{r}{r?1}\right)}^n$, where $A_1$, $A_2$ are some algebraic fractions. The main result is a new lower bound on $p(n,r)$ when $r$ is at least $c\sqrt{n}$; we improve an upper bound on $p(n,r)$ if $n=o\left(r^{3∕2}\right)$.Also we show that $p(n,r)$ has upper and lower bounds depending only on $n∕r$ when the ratio $n∕r$ is small, which cannot be reached by the previous probabilistic machinery.Finally we construct an explicit example of a hypergraph without panchromatic coloring and with ${(\frac{r}{r?1}+o\left(1\right))}^n$ edges for $r=o\left(\sqrt{\frac{n}{lnn}}\right)$.