Related papers: On the Cameron-Praeger Conjecture

One of the most central and long-standing open questions in combinatorial design theory concerns the existence of Steiner t-designs for large values of t. Although in his classical 1987 paper, L. Teirlinck has shown that non-trivial…

Block-transitive Steiner $t$-designs form a central part of the study of highly symmetric combinatorial configurations at the interface of several disciplines, including group theory, geometry, combinatorics, coding and information theory,…

This paper deals with block-transitive $t$-$(v,k,\lambda)$ designs in affine spaces for large $t$, with a focus on the important index $\lambda=1$ case. We prove that there are no non-trivial 5-$(v,k,1)$ designs admitting a block-transitive…

The paper is an investigation of the structure of block-transitive automorphism groups of a 3-design with small block size. Let $G$ be a block-transitive automorphism group of a nontrivial $3$-$(v,k,\lambda)$ design $\mathcal{D}$ with $k\le…

Let $\mathcal{D}$ be a non-trivial $G$-block-transitive $3$-$(v,k,1)$ design, where $T\leq G \leq \mathrm{Aut}(T)$ for some finite non-abelian simple group $T$. It is proved that if $T$ is a simple exceptional group of Lie type, then $T$ is…

Let $\mathcal{D}$ be a nontrivial $3$-$(v,k,1)$ design admitting a block-transitive group $G$ of automorphisms. A recent work of Gan and the second author asserts that $G$ is either affine or almost simple. In this paper, it is proved that…

Nov\'{a}k conjectured in 1974 that for any cyclic Steiner triple systems of order $v$ with $v\equiv 1\pmod{6}$, it is always possible to choose one block from each block orbit so that the chosen blocks are pairwise disjoint. We consider the…

A recent construction by Amarra, Devillers and Praeger of block designs with specific parameters depends on certain quadratic polynomials, with integer coefficients, taking prime power values. The Bunyakovsky Conjecture, if true, would…

As a consequence of the classification of the finite simple groups, it has been possible in recent years to characterize Steiner t-designs, that is t-(v,k,1) designs, mainly for t = 2, admitting groups of automorphisms with sufficiently…

Let $q$ be a prime power and $V\cong{\mathbb F}_q^n$. A $t$-$(n,k,\lambda)_q$ design, or simply a subspace design, is a pair ${\mathcal D}=(V,{\mathcal B})$, where ${\mathcal B}$ is a subset of the set of all $k$-dimensional subspaces of…

A conjecture of Benjamini & Schramm from 1996 states that any finitely generated group that is not a finite extension of Z has a non-trivial percolation phase. Our main results prove this conjecture for certain groups, and in particular…

A design is additive under an abelian group $G$ (briefly, $G$-additive) if, up to isomorphism, its point set is contained in $G$ and the elements of each block sum up to zero. The only known Steiner 2-designs that are $G$-additive for some…

It was shown in 1989 by Delandtsheer and Doyen that, for a $2$-design with $v$ points and block size $k$, a block-transitive group of automorphisms can be point-imprimitive (that is, leave invariant a nontrivial partition of the point set)…

This paper studies the long-standing open problem of the reduction of Steiner 3-designs admitting a block-transitive automorphism group. We prove that if G acts as a point-primitive, block-transitive automorphism group of a nontrivial…

This paper investigates block-transitive automorphism groups of t-(k^2,k,\lambda) designs. Let D be a non-trivial t-(k^2,k,\lambda) design, G \leq \Aut(D) be block-transitive with X\unlhd G\leq \Aut(X), where X = PSL(2,q)(q\geq4). Then q =…

This paper investigates $2$-$(v,5,\lambda)$ designs $\mathcal{D}$ admitting a block-transitive automorphism group $G$. We first prove that if $G$ is point-imprimitive, then $v$ must be one of 16, 21, or 81. We further provide a complete…

A design is $G$-additive with $G$ an abelian group, if its points are in $G$ and each block is zero-sum in $G$. All the few known ``manageable" additive Steiner 2-designs are $\mathrm{EA}(q)$-additive for a suitable $q$, where…

Let $\mathcal{D}=(\mathcal{P},\mathcal{B})$ be a non-trivial block-transitive $t$-$(k^2,k,\lambda)$ design with $G\leq \Aut(\mathcal{D})$ and $X\unlhd G\leq \Aut(X)$, where $X=PSL(n,q)(n\geq3).$ We prove that $t=2$ and the parameters…

In this article, we investigate $2$-$(v,k,\lambda)$ designs with $\gcd(r,\lambda)=1$ admitting flag-transitive automorphism groups $G$. We prove that if $G$ is an almost simple group, then such a design belongs to one of the seven infinite…

We use the Bateman--Horn Conjecture from number theory to give strong evidence of a positive answer to Peter Neumann's question, whether there are infinitely many simple groups of order a product of six primes. (Those with fewer than six…