Related papers: Packing Costas Arrays
We define a cover of a Latin square to be a set of entries that includes at least one representative of each row, column and symbol. A cover is minimal if it does not contain any smaller cover. A partial transversal is a set of entries that…
A pair of orthogonal latin cubes of order $q$ is equivalent to an MDS code with distance $3$ or to an ${\rm OA}_1(3,5,q)$ orthogonal array. We construct pairs of orthogonal latin cubes for a sequence of previously unknown orders…
In a latin square of order $n$, a near transversal is a collection of $n-1$ cells which intersects each row, column, and symbol class at most once. A longstanding conjecture of Brualdi, Ryser, and Stein asserts that every latin square…
Difference arrays are used in applications such as software testing, authentication codes and data compression. Pseudo-orthogonal Latin squares are used in experimental designs. A special class of pseudo-orthogonal Latin squares are the…
An array is row-Latin if no symbol is repeated within any row. An array is Latin if it and its transpose are both row-Latin. A transversal in an $n\times n$ array is a selection of $n$ different symbols from different rows and different…
A critical set in an $n \times n$ array is a set $C$ of given entries, such that there exists a unique extension of $C$ to an $n\times n$ Latin square and no proper subset of $C$ has this property. The cardinality of the largest critical…
Latin squares are interesting combinatorial objects with many applications. When working with Latin squares, one is sometimes led to deal with partial Latin squares, a generalization of Latin squares. One of the problems regarding partial…
In this note we show that for each Latin square $L$ of order $n\geq 2$, there exists a Latin square $L'\neq L$ of order $n$ such that $L$ and $L'$ differ in at most $8\sqrt{n}$ cells. Equivalently, each Latin square of order $n$ contains a…
A $k \times n$ partial Latin rectangle is \textit{$C$-sparse} if the number of nonempty entries in each row and column is at most $C$ and each symbol is used at most $C$ times. We prove that the probability a uniformly random $k \times n$…
A defining set of a Latin square is a partially filled-in Latin square which completes to no other Latin square of the same order. We introduce the concept of a $k$-strong defining set, in which if less than $k$ entries are deleted, the…
Let $L$ be an order-$n$ Latin square. For $X, Y, Z \subseteq \{1, ... ,n\}$, let $L(X, Y. Z)$ be the number of triples $i\in X, j\in Y, k\in Z$ such that $L(i,j) = k$. We conjecture that asymptotically almost every Latin square satisfies…
A Latin square of order $n$ is an $n$ by $n$ grid filled using $n$ symbols so that each symbol appears exactly once in each row and column. A transversal in a Latin square is a collection of cells which share no symbol, row or column. The…
The fundamental combinatorial structure of a net in CP^2 is its associated set of mutually orthogonal latin squares. We define equivalence classes of sets of orthogonal Latin squares by label equivalences of the lines of the corresponding…
Consider a partial Latin square $P$ where the first two rows and first three columns are completely filled, and every other cell of $P$ is empty. It has been conjectured that all such partial Latin squares of order at least $8$ are…
In 1782, Euler conjectured that no Latin square of order $n\equiv 2\; \textrm{mod}\; 4$ has a decomposition into transversals. While confirmed for $n=6$ by Tarry in 1900, Bose, Parker, and Shrikhande constructed counterexamples in 1960 for…
We investigate the generalization of the Costas property in 3 or more dimensions, and we seek an appropriate definition; the 2 main complications are a) that the number of ``dots'' this multidimensional structure should have is not obvious,…
A Latin square $L(n,k)$ is a square of order $n$ with its entries colored with $k$ colors so that all the entries in a row or column have different colors. Let $d(L(n,k))$ be the minimal number of colored entries of an $n \times n$ square…
We show that a pair of orthogonal partial latin squares of order $n$ can be embedded in a pair of orthogonal latin squares of order at most $16n^4$ and all orders greater than or equal to $48n^4$. This paper provides the first direct…
A critical set in an $n \times n$ array is a set $C$ of given entries, such that there exists a unique extension of $C$ to an $n\times n$ Latin square and no proper subset of $C$ has this property. For a Latin square $L$, $\scs{L}$ denotes…
A Latin hypercuboid of order $n$ is a $d$-dimensional matrix of dimensions $n\times n\times\cdots\times n\times k$, with symbols from a set of cardinality $n$ such that each symbol occurs at most once in each axis-parallel line. If $k=n$…