English

Hall's Condition for Partial Latin Squares

Combinatorics 2011-07-14 v1

Abstract

Hall's Condition is a necessary condition for a partial latin square to be completable. Hilton and Johnson showed that for a partial latin square whose filled cells form a rectangle, Hall's Condition is equivalent to Ryser's Condition, which is a necessary and sufficient condition for completability. We give what could be regarded as an extension of Ryser's Theorem, by showing that for a partial latin square whose filled cells form a rectangle, where there is at most one empty cell in each column of the rectangle, Hall's Condition is a necessary and sufficient condition for completability. It is well-known that the problem of deciding whether a partial latin square is completable is NP-complete. We show that the problem of deciding whether a partial latin square that is promised to satisfy Hall's Condition is completable is NP-hard.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1107.2639,
  title  = {Hall's Condition for Partial Latin Squares},
  author = {A. J. W. Hilton and E. R. Vaughan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1107.2639},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

23 pages; 9 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T18:36:19.679Z