English

Mutually orthogonal latin squares with large holes

Combinatorics 2014-10-27 v1

Abstract

Two latin squares are orthogonal if, when they are superimposed, every ordered pair of symbols appears exactly once. This definition extends naturally to `incomplete' latin squares each having a hole on the same rows, columns, and symbols. If an incomplete latin square of order nn has a hole of order mm, then it is an easy observation that n2mn \ge 2m. More generally, if a set of tt incomplete mutually orthogonal latin squares of order nn have a common hole of order mm, then n(t+1)mn \ge (t+1)m. In this article, we prove such sets of incomplete squares exist for all n,m0n,m \gg 0 satisfying n8(t+1)2mn \ge 8(t+1)^2 m.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1410.6743,
  title  = {Mutually orthogonal latin squares with large holes},
  author = {Peter J. Dukes and Christopher M. van Bommel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1410.6743},
  year   = {2014}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T06:35:37.449Z