Related papers: On determining when small embeddings of partial St…
It was proved in 2009 that any partial Steiner triple system of order $u$ has an embedding of order $v$ for each admissible integer $v\geq 2u+1$. This result is best-possible in the sense that, for each $u\geq 9$, there exists a partial…
A partial Steiner triple system of order n is sequenceable if there is a sequence of length n of its distinct points such that no proper segment of the sequence is a union of point-disjoint blocks. We prove that if a partial Steiner triple…
Let $X$ be a $v$-set, $\B$ a set of 3-subsets (triples) of $X$, and $\B^+\cup\B^-$ a partition of $\B$ with $|\B^-|=s$. The pair $(X,\B)$ is called a simple signed Steiner triple system, denoted by ST$(v,s)$, if the number of occurrences of…
We propose a new approach to studies on partial Steiner triple systems consisting in determining complete graphs contained in them. We establish the structure which complete graphs yield in a minimal PSTS that contains them. As a by-product…
A Steiner triple system is a set $S$ together with a collection $\mathcal{B}$ of subsets of $S$ of size 3 such that any two elements of $S$ belong to exactly one element of $\mathcal{B}$. It is well known that the class of finite Steiner…
Let $G$ be a simple finite graph and $G'$ be a subgraph of $G$. A $G'$-design $(X,\cal B)$ of order $n$ is said to be embedded into a $G$-design $(X\cup U,\cal C)$ of order $n+u$, if there is an injective function $f:\cal B\rightarrow \cal…
The smallest open case for classifying Steiner triple systems is order 21. A Steiner triple system of order 21, an STS(21), can have subsystems of orders 7 and 9, and it is known that there are 12,661,527,336 isomorphism classes of STS(21)s…
We show that for any n divisible by 3, almost all order-n Steiner triple systems admit a decomposition of almost all their triples into disjoint perfect matchings (that is, almost all Steiner triple systems are almost resolvable).
A partial Steiner triple system is is $sequenceable$ if the points can be sequenced so that no proper segment can be partitioned into blocks. We show that, if $0 \leq a \leq (n-1)/3$, then there exists a nonsequenceable PSTS$(n)$ of size…
In 1973 Erdos asked whether there are n-vertex partial Steiner triple systems with arbitrary high girth and quadratically many triples. (Here girth is defined as the smallest integer g \ge 4 for which some g-element vertex-set contains at…
In this article we construct uncountably many new homogeneous locally finite Steiner triple systems of countably infinite order as Fra\"{\i}ss\'{e} limits of classes of finite Steiner triple systems avoiding certain subsystems. The…
The intersection of two Steiner triple systems (X,A) and (X,B) is the set A intersect B. The fine intersection problem for Steiner triple systems is to determine for each v, the set I(v), consisting of all possible pairs (m,n) such that…
A Kirkman triple system of order $v$, KTS$(v)$, is a resolvable Steiner triple system on $v$ elements. In this paper, we investigate an open problem posed by Doug Stinson, namely the existence of KTS$(v)$ which contain as a subdesign a…
A Steiner triple system, STS$(v)$, is a family of $3$-subsets (blocks) of a set of $v$ elements such that any two elements occur together in precisely one block. A collection of triples consisting of two copies of each block of an STS is…
A partial Steiner triple system whose triples can be partitioned into $s$ partial parallel classes, each of size $m$, is a $signal$ $set$, denoted $\mbox{SS}(v,s,m)$. A $Kirkman$ $signal$ $set$ $\mbox{KSS}(v,m)$ is an $\mbox{SS}(v,s,m)$…
Nested Steiner quadruple systems are designs derived from Steiner quadruple systems (SQSs) by partitioning each block into pairs. A nested SQS is completely uniform if every possible pair appears with equal multiplicity, and completely…
The concept of Schreier extensions of loops was introduced in the general case in [11] and, more recently, it has been explored in the context of Steiner loops in [6]. In the latter case, it gives a powerful method for constructing Steiner…
We show that for any n divisible by 3, almost all order-n Steiner triple systems have a perfect matching (also known as a parallel class or resolution class). In fact, we prove a general upper bound on the number of perfect matchings in a…
The $p$-rank of a Steiner triple system $B$ is the dimension of the linear span of the set of characteristic vectors of blocks of $B$, over GF$(p)$. We derive a formula for the number of different Steiner triple systems of order $v$ and…
A famous theorem of Kirkman says that there exists a Steiner triple system of order $n$ if and only if $n\equiv 1,3\mod{6}$. In 1973, Erd\H{o}s conjectured that one can find so-called `sparse' Steiner triple systems. Roughly speaking, the…