Rational congruence for uniform multiplicative designs

A multiplicative design is a family ofn subsets of ann-set whose incidence matrixA satisfiesA ^T A=D+ ^T where is a positive real vector andD is a positive diagonal matrix. This is a generalization of-designs where is a constant vector and of (v, k, )-designs whereD is additionally required to be scalar. In a uniform design we only require thatD be scalar, so the equation isA ^T A=dI+ ^T .One of the basic results on (v, k, )-designs is the Bruck-Ryser-Chowla Theorem which says thatk– must be a square ifv is even and thatz ²=(k–)x ²+y ²(–1)^(v–1)/2 must have a nontrivial integral solution ifv is odd. This can be proved with or without reference to the theory of rational congruences.The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implications of the theory of rational congruences for the existence of uniform multiplicative designs. The Hass-Minkowski Theorem provides the main line of attack. The main result gives a finite set of equations, suitable for programming on a computer, which must be satisfied if there is a rational matrix satisfying the equationA ^T A=dI+ ^T for a uniform design.