Related papers: On the existence of block-transitive combinatorial…

In this paper we study a certain generalization of combinatorial designs related to almost difference sets, namely the $t$-adesign, which was coined by Cunsheng Ding in 2015. It is clear that $2$-adesigns are a kind of partially balanced…

The two basic equations satisfied by the parameters of a block design define a three-dimensional affine variety $\mathcal{D}$ in $\mathbb{R}^{5}$. A point of $\mathcal{D}$ that is not in some sense trivial lies on four lines lying in…

Classical block designs are important combinatorial structures with a wide range of applications in Computer Science and Statistics. Here we give a new abstract description of block designs based on the arrow category construction. We show…

Unitary $t$-designs are `good' finite subsets of the unitary group $U(d)$ that approximate the whole unitary group $U(d)$ well. Unitary $t$-designs have been applied in randomized benchmarking, tomography, quantum cryptography and many…

We consider $2$-designs which admit a group of automorphisms that is flag-transitive and leaves invariant a chain of nontrivial point-partitions. We build on our recent work on $2$-designs which are block-transitive but not necessarily…

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…

We define a triangle design as a partition of the set of lines of a projective space into triangles, where a triangle consists of three pairwise intersecting lines with no common point. A triangle design is balanced if all points are…

Almost designs ($t$-adesigns) were proposed and discussed by Ding as a certain generalization of combinatorial designs related to almost difference sets. Unlike $t$-designs, it is not clear whether $t$-adesigns need also be $(t-1)$-designs…

A new probabilistic technique for establishing the existence of certain regular combinatorial structures has been recentlyintroduced by Kuperberg, Lovett, and Peled (STOC 2012). Using this technique, it can be shown that under certain…

One of the very first results about designs over finite fields, by S. Thomas, is the existence of a cyclic 2-$(n,3,7)$ design over $\mathbb{F}_{2}$ for every integer $n$ coprime with 6. Here, by means of difference methods, we reprove and…

Suppose that all nontrivial subsections of a $p$-block $B$ are conjugate (where $p$ is a prime). By using the classification of the finite simple groups, we prove that the defect groups of $B$ are either extraspecial of order $p^3$ with $p…

In this note six Steiner systems $S(2,8,225)$ and four Steiner systems $S(2,9,289)$ are presented. This resolves two of $129$ undecided cases for block designs with block length $8$ and $9$, mentioned in Handbook of Combinatorial Designs.

Let $M(n,d)$ be the maximum size of a permutation array on $n$ symbols with pairwise Hamming distance at least $d$. Some permutation arrays can be constructed using blocks of certain type [2] called product blocks in this paper. We study…

We introduce a new type of $n$-dimensional generalization of symmetric $(v,k,\lambda)$ block designs. We prove upper bounds on the dimension $n$ in terms of $v$ and $k$. We also define the corresponding concept of $n$-dimensional difference…

Trinh and Xue have proposed a startling conjecture on intersections of blocks of cyclotomic Hecke algebras occurring in modular representation theory of finite reductive groups. We prove this conjecture for all exceptional type groups apart…

Block designs are combinatorial structures in which each pair of a set of varieties appears together in a fixed number of blocks. Complete graphs are graphs in which every pair of vertices are adjacent. We present some new constructions of…

In this article, we study $2$-designs with prime replication number admitting a flag-transitive automorphism group. The automorphism groups of these designs are point-primitive of almost simple or affine type. We determine $2$-designs with…

We try to embed a t-design in a finite commutative group in such a way that the sum of the k points of a block is zero. We can compute the number of blocks of the boolean 2-design having all the non zero vectors of $(Z_2)^n$ as the set of…

Unitary $t$-designs are a ubiquitous tool in many research areas, including randomized benchmarking, quantum process tomography, and scrambling. Despite the intensive efforts of many researchers, little is known about unitary $t$-designs…

A Steiner structure $\dS = \dS_q[t,k,n]$ is a set of $k$-dimensional subspaces of $\F_q^n$ such that each $t$-dimensional subspace of $\F_q^n$ is contained in exactly one subspace of $\dS$. Steiner structures are the $q$-analogs of Steiner…