Related papers: Even-freeness of cyclic 2-designs

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…

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…

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 $n$, $k$, and $t$ be integers satisfying $n>k>t\ge2$. A Steiner system with parameters $t$, $k$, and $n$ is a $k$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices in which every set of $t$ distinct vertices is contained in exactly one edge. An…

Coding theory and combinatorial $t$-designs have close connections and interesting interplay. One of the major approaches to the construction of combinatorial t-designs is the employment of error-correcting codes. As we all known, some…

An avoidance problem of configurations in 4-cycle systems is investigated by generalizing the notion of sparseness, which is originally from Erd\H{o}s' r-sparse conjecture on Steiner triple systems. A 4-cycle system of order v, 4CS(v), is…

Steiner systems are a fascinating topic of combinatorics. The most studied Steiner systems are $S(2, 3, v)$ (Steiner triple systems), $S(3, 4, v)$ (Steiner quadruple systems), and $S(2, 4, v)$. There are a few infinite families of Steiner…

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…

Large sets of combinatorial designs has always been a fascinating topic in design theory. These designs form a partition of the whole space into combinatorial designs with the same parameters. In particular, a large set of block designs,…

The Kramer-Mesner method for constructing designs with a prescribed automorphism group $G$ has proven effective many times. In the special case of Steiner designs, the task reduces to solving an exact cover problem, with the advantage that…

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,…

The paper is devoted to the study of free objects in the variety of Steiner loops and of the combinatorial structures behind them, focusing on their automorphism groups. We prove that all automorphisms are tame and the automorphism group is…

More than $30$ years ago, Delandtsheer and Doyen showed that the automorphism group of a block-transitive $2$-design, with blocks of size $k$, could leave invariant a nontrivial point-partition, but only if the number of points was bounded…

Let $G_{n}$ be the dicyclic group of order $4n$. We observe that, up to isomorphisms, (i) for $n \geq 2$ even there is exactly one regular dessin d'enfant with automorphism group $G_{n}$, and (ii) for $n \geq 3$ odd there are exactly two of…

We clarify the mathematical structure underlying unitary $t$-designs. These are sets of unitary matrices, evenly distributed in the sense that the average of any $t$-th order polynomial over the design equals the average over the entire…

A free Steiner quasigroup is a free object in the variety of Steiner quasigroups. Free Steiner quasigroups are characterised by the existence of a levelled construction that starts with a free base - that is, a set of elements none of which…

A Ryser design $\mathcal{D}$ on $v$ points is a collection of $v$ proper subsets (called blocks) of a point-set with $v$ points such that every two blocks intersect each other in $\lambda$ points (and $\lambda < v$ is a fixed number) and…

A {\em cross-free} set of size $m$ in a Steiner triple system $(V,{\cal{B}})$ is three pairwise disjoint $m$-element subsets $X_1,X_2,X_3\subset V$ such that no $B\in {\cal{B}}$ intersects all the three $X_i$-s. We conjecture that for every…

A $3$-$(v,\{4,6\},1)$ design is a configuration of $v$ points and a collection of $4$- and $6$-element subsets called blocks, that jointly contain every 3-element subset exactly once. Using an exhaustive computer search on $v\leq 28$ points…

I give an elementary proof that a quasi-symmetric design without repeated blocks on $v$ points has at most $v\choose2$ blocks, with equality if and only if it is a tight $4$-design.