Translation groups of Steiner loops

If the order of any product of two different translations of a finite Steiner quasigroup of size n>3 is odd, then the group G generated by the translations of the corresponding Steiner loop of order n+1 contains the alternating group of degree n+1.     

Semi-planar Steiner loops of cardinality 2n

It is well known that there is a planar sloop of cardinality n for each n≡2 or 4 (mod 6) (Math. Z. 111 (1969) 289–300). A semi-planar sloop is a simple sloop in which each triangle either generates the whole sloop or the 8-element sloop. In fact, Quackenbush (Canad. J. Math. 28 (1976) 1187–1198) has stated that there should be such semi-planar sloops. In this paper, we construct a semi-planar sloop of cardinality 2n for each n≡2 or 4 (mod 6). Consequently, we may say that there is a semi-planar sloop that is not planar of cardinality m for each m>16 and m≡4 or 8 (mod 12). Moreover, Quackenbush (Canad. J. Math. 28 (1976) 1187–1198) has proved that each finite simple planar sloop generates a variety, which covers the smallest non-trivial subvariety (the variety of all Boolean sloops) of the lattice of the subvarieties of all sloops. Similarly, it is easy to show that each finite semi-planar sloop generates another variety, which also covers the variety of all Boolean sloops. Furthermore, for any finite simple sloop of cardinality n, the author (Beiträge Algebra Geom. 43 (2) (2002) 325–331) has constructed a subdirectly irreducible sloop of cardinality 2n and containing as the only proper normal subsloop. Accordingly, if is a semi-planar sloop, then the variety generated by properly contains the subvariety .     

Nilpotent Steiner skeins with nilpotent derived Steiner loops

Armanious and Guelzow obtained the structure theorem of finite nilpotent Steiner skeins. Guelzow gave a construction of a Steiner skein of nilpotence class n with all its derived Steiner loops of nilpotence class 1. Armanious gave a construction for Steiner skeins of nilpotence class n with all its derived Steiner loops of nilpotence class n. In this article we survey the main results on nilpotent Steiner skeins and give a new and simple construction, in the form of polynomials, for Steiner skeins of nilpotence class n with all its derived Steiner loops of nilpotence class n. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Combin Designs 8: 232–238, 2000     

Uniform two‐class regular partial Steiner triple systems

A 2‐class regular partial Steiner triple system is a partial Steiner triple system whose points can be partitioned into 2‐classes such that no triple is contained in either class and any two points belonging to the same class are contained in the same number of triples. It is uniform if the two classes have the same size. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of uniform 2‐class regular partial Steiner triple systems.     

Some new perfect Steiner triple systems

In a Steiner triple system STS(v) = (V, B), for each pair {a, b} ⊂ V, the cycle graph G_a,b can be defined as follows. The vertices of G_a,b are V \ {a, b, c} where {a, b, c} ∈ B. {x, y} is an edge if either {a, x, y} or {b, x, y} ∈ B. The Steiner triple system is said to be perfect if the cycle graph of every pair is a single (v − 3)-cycle. Perfect STS(v) are known only for v = 7, 9, 25, and 33. We construct perfect STS (v) for v = 79, 139, 367, 811, 1531, 25771, 50923, 61339, and 69991. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Combin Designs 7: 327–330, 1999     

Steiner triple systems with two disjoint subsystems

It is shown that there exists a triangle decomposition of the graph obtained from the complete graph of order v by removing the edges of two vertex disjoint complete subgraphs of orders u and w if and only if u,w, and v are odd, (mod 3), and . Such decompositions are equivalent to group divisible designs with block size 3, one group of size u, one group of size w, and v – u – w groups of size 1. This result settles the existence problem for Steiner triple systems having two disjoint specified subsystems, thereby generalizing the well‐known theorem of Doyen and Wilson on the existence of Steiner triple systems with a single specified subsystem. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs     

A proof of Lindner's conjecture on embeddings of partial Steiner triple systems

Lindner's conjecture that any partial Steiner triple system of order u can be embedded in a Steiner triple system of order v if and is proved. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 17: 63–89, 2009     

Small Embeddings of Partial Steiner Triple Systems

It was proved in 2009 that any partial Steiner triple system of order u has an embedding of order v for each admissible . This result is best possible in the sense that, for each , there exists a partial Steiner triple system of order u that does not have an embedding of order v for any . Many partial Steiner triple systems do have embeddings of orders smaller than , but much less is known about when these embeddings exist. In this paper, we detail a method for constructing such embeddings. We use this method to show that each member of a wide class of partial Steiner triple systems has an embedding of order v for at least half (or nearly half) of the orders for which an embedding could exist. For some members of this class we are able to completely determine the set of all orders for which the member has an embedding.     

On semi-planar Steiner quasigroups

A Steiner triple system (briefly ST) is in 1-1 correspondence with a Steiner quasigroup or squag (briefly SQ) [B. Ganter, H. Werner, Co-ordinatizing Steiner systems, Ann. Discrete Math. 7 (1980) 3-24; C.C. Lindner, A. Rosa, Steiner quadruple systems: A survey, Discrete Math. 21 (1979) 147-181]. It is well known that for each n≡1 or 3 (mod 6) there is a planar squag of cardinality n [J. Doyen, Sur la structure de certains systems triples de Steiner, Math. Z. 111 (1969) 289-300]. Quackenbush expected that there should also be semi-planar squags [R.W. Quackenbush, Varieties of Steiner loops and Steiner quasigroups, Canad. J. Math. 28 (1976) 1187-1198]. A simple squag is semi-planar if every triangle either generates the whole squag or the 9-element squag. The first author has constructed a semi-planar squag of cardinality 3n for all n>3 and n≡1 or 3 (mod 6) [M.H. Armanious, Semi-planar Steiner quasigroups of cardinality 3n, Australas. J. Combin. 27 (2003) 13-27]. In fact, this construction supplies us with semi-planar squags having only nontrivial subsquags of cardinality 9. Our aim in this article is to give a recursive construction as n→3n for semi-planar squags. This construction permits us to construct semi-planar squags having nontrivial subsquags of cardinality >9. Consequently, we may say that there are semi-planar (or semi-planar ) for each positive integer m and each n≡1 or 3 (mod 6) with n>3 having only medial subsquags at most of cardinality 3^ν (sub-) for each ν∈{1,2,…,m+1}.     

Sequencing partial Steiner triple systems

A partial Steiner triple system of order $n$ is sequenceable if there is a sequence of length $n$ of its distinct points such that no proper segment of the sequence is a union of point‐disjoint blocks. We prove that if a partial Steiner triple system has at most three point‐disjoint blocks, then it is sequenceable.     

Trinal Decompositions of Steiner Triple Systems into Triangles

It is well known that when or , there exists a Steiner triple system (STS) of order n decomposable into triangles (three pairwise intersecting triples whose intersection is empty). A triangle in an STS determines naturally two more triples: the triple of “vertices” , and the triple of “midpoints” . The number of these triples in both cases, that of “vertex” triples (inner) or that of “midpoint triples” (outer), equals one‐third of the number of triples in the STS. In this paper, we consider a new problem of trinal decompositions of an STS into triangles. In this problem, one asks for three distinct decompositions of an STS of order n into triangles such that the union of the three collections of inner triples (outer triples, respectively) from the three decompositions form the set of triples of an STS of the same order. These decompositions are called trinal inner and trinal outer decompositions, respectively. We settle the existence question for trinal inner decompositions completely, and for trinal outer decompositions with two possible exceptions.     

On the Binary Codes of Steiner Triple Systems

The binary code spanned by the rows of the point byblock incidence matrix of a Steiner triple system STS(v)is studied. A sufficient condition for such a code to containa unique equivalence class of STS(v)'s of maximalrank within the code is proved. The code of the classical Steinertriple system defined by the lines in PG(n-1,2)(n3), or AG(n,3) (n3) is shown to contain exactly v codewordsof weight r=(v-1)/2, hence the system is characterizedby its code. In addition, the code of the projective STS(2ⁿ-1)is characterized as the unique (up to equivalence) binary linearcode with the given parameters and weight distribution. In general,the number of STS(v)'s contained in the code dependson the geometry of the codewords of weight r. Itis demonstrated that the ovals and hyperovals of the definingSTS(v) play a crucial role in this geometry. Thisrelation is utilized for the construction of some infinite classesof Steiner triple systems without ovals.     

Simple Signed Steiner Triple Systems

Let X be a v‐set, be a set of 3‐subsets (triples) of X, and be a partition of with . The pair is called a simple signed Steiner triple system, denoted by ST, if the number of occurrences of every 2‐subset of X in triples is one more than the number of occurrences in triples . In this paper, we prove that exists if and only if , , and , where and for , . © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Combin. Designs 20: 332–343, 2012     

On 6-sparse Steiner triple systems

We give the first known examples of 6-sparse Steiner triple systems by constructing 29 such systems in the residue class 7 modulo 12, with orders ranging from 139 to 4447. We then present a recursive construction which establishes the existence of 6-sparse systems for an infinite set of orders. Observations are also made concerning existing construction methods for perfect Steiner triple systems, and we give a further example of such a system. This has order 135,859 and is only the fourteenth known. Finally, we present a uniform Steiner triple system of order 180,907.     

Embedding partial Steiner triple systems so that their automorphisms extend

It is shown that there is a function g on the natural numbers such that a partial Steiner triple system U on u points can be embedded in a Steiner triple system V on ν points, in such a way that all automorphisms of U can be extended to V, for every admissible ν satisfying ν > g(u). We find exponential upper and lower bounds for g. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs.     

Quasi‐embeddings of Steiner triple systems,or Steiner triple systems of different orders with maximum intersection

In this paper, we present a conjecture that is a common generalization of the Doyen–Wilson Theorem and Lindner and Rosa's intersection theorem for Steiner triple systems. Given u, v ≡ 1,3 (mod 6), u < v < 2u + 1, we ask for the minimum r such that there exists a Steiner triple system such that some partial system can be completed to an STS , where |?| = r. In other words, in order to “quasi‐embed” an STS(u) into an STS(v), we must remove r blocks from the small system, and this r is the least such with this property. One can also view the quantity (u(u ? 1)/6) ? r as the maximum intersection of an STS(u) and an STS(v) with u < v. We conjecture that the necessary minimum r = (v ? u) (2u + 1 ? v)/6 can be achieved, except when u = 6t + 1 and v = 6t + 3, in which case it is r = 3t for t ≠ 2, or r = 7 when t = 2. Using small examples and recursion, we solve the cases v ? u = 2 and 4, asymptotically solve the cases v ? u = 6, 8, and 10, and further show for given v ? u > 2 that an asymptotic solution exists if solutions exist for a run of consecutive values of u (whose required length is no more than v ? u). Some results are obtained for v close to 2u + 1 as well. The cases where ≈ 3u/2 seem to be the hardest. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

组大小为10的广义Steiner三元系

广义Steiner三元系GS(2,3,n,g)等价于g+1元最优常重量码(n,3,3)。本文证明了GS(2,3,n,10)存在的必要条件n≡0,1(mod3),n≥12也是充分的。     

On sparse countably infinite Steiner triple systems

We give a general construction for Steiner triple systems on a countably infinite point set and show that it yields 2 ${}^{\text{?}{}_{\text{0}}}$ nonisomorphic systems all of which are uniform and r‐sparse for all finite r?4. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 18: 115–122, 2010     

Large monochromatic components in 3‐edge‐colored Steiner triple systems

It is known that in any r‐coloring of the edges of a complete r‐uniform hypergraph, there exists a spanning monochromatic component. Given a Steiner triple system on n vertices, what is the largest monochromatic component one can guarantee in an arbitrary 3‐coloring of the edges? Gyárfás proved that $\left(2n+3\right)/3$ is an absolute lower bound and that this lower bound is best possible for infinitely many $n$. On the other hand, we prove that for almost all Steiner triple systems the lower bound is actually $\left(1?o\left(1\right)\right)n$. We obtain this result as a consequence of a more general theorem which shows that the lower bound depends on the size of a largest 3‐partite hole (ie, disjoint sets $X_1,X_2,X_3$ with $|X_1|=|X_2|=|X_3|$ such that no edge intersects all of $X_1,X_2,X_3$) in the Steiner triple system (Gyárfás previously observed that the upper bound depends on this parameter). Furthermore, we show that this lower bound is tight unless the structure of the Steiner triple system and the coloring of its edges are restricted in a certain way. We also suggest a variety of other Ramsey problems in the setting of Steiner triple systems.