Related papers: Thresholds for Latin squares and Steiner triple sy…

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…

An $n \times n$ partial Latin square $P$ is called $\alpha$-dense if each row and column has at most $\alpha n$ non-empty cells and each symbol occurs at most $\alpha n$ times in $P$. An $n \times n$ array $A$ where each cell contains a…

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…

Given an integer partition $P = (h_1h_2\dots h_k)$ of $n$, a realization of $P$ is a latin square with disjoint subsquares of orders $h_1,h_2,\dots,h_k$. Most known results restrict either $k$ or the number of different integers in $P$.…

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…

Let $T(n)$ denote the maximal number of transversals in an order-$n$ Latin square. Improving on the bounds obtained by McKay et al., Taranenko recently proved that $T(n) \leq \left((1+o(1))\frac{n}{e^2}\right)^{n}$, and conjectured that…

Denote by $F_5$ the $3$-uniform hypergraph on vertex set $\{1,2,3,4,5\}$ with hyperedges $\{123,124,345\}$. Balogh, Butterfield, Hu, and Lenz proved that if $p > K \log n / n$ for some large constant $K$, then every maximum $F_5$-free…

We prove that, for all even $n\geq10$, there exists a latin square of order $n$ with at least one transversal, yet all transversals coincide on $ \big\lfloor n/6 \big\rfloor$ entries. These latin squares have at least $ 19 n^2/36 + O(n)$…

An intercalate in a Latin square is a $2\times2$ Latin subsquare. Let $N$ be the number of intercalates in a uniformly random $n\times n$ Latin square. We prove that asymptotically almost surely…

In a Latin square, every row can be interpreted as a permutation, and therefore has a parity (even or odd). We prove that in a uniformly random $n\times n$ Latin square, the $n$ row parities are very well approximated by a sequence of $n$…

Let STS(n) denote the number of Steiner triple systems on n vertices, and let F(n) denote the number of 1-factorizations of the complete graph on n vertices. We prove the following upper bound. STS(n) <= ((1 + o(1)) (n/e^2))^(n^2/6) F(n) <=…

The Dinitz conjecture states that, for each $n$ and for every collection of $n$-element sets $S_{ij}$, an $n\times n$ partial latin square can be found with the $(i,j)$\<th entry taken from $S_{ij}$. The analogous statement for $(n-1)\times…

We consider the problem of constructing Latin cubes subject to the condition that some symbols may not appear in certain cells. We prove that there is a constant $\gamma > 0$ such that if $n=2^k$ and $A$ is $3$-dimensional $n\times n\times…

For a graph $G$ and $p\in[0,1]$, we denote by $G_p$ the random sparsification of $G$ obtained by keeping each edge of $G$ independently, with probability $p$. We show that there exists a $C>0$ such that if $p\geq C(\log n)^{1/3}n^{-2/3}$…

Let $d\geq 3$ be a constant and let $F$ be a $d$-regular graph on $[n]$ with not too many symmetries. By the union bound, the probability threshold for the existence of a spanning subgraph in $G(n,p)$ isomorphic to $F$ is at least…

A classical question in combinatorics is the following:\ given a partial Latin square $P$, when can we complete $P$ to a Latin square $L$? In this paper, we investigate the class of \textbf{$\epsilon$-dense partial Latin squares}:\ partial…

It is established that the logarithm of the number of latin $d$-cubes of order $n$ is $\Theta(n^{d}\ln n)$ and the logarithm of the number of pairs of orthogonal latin squares of order $n$ is $\Theta(n^2\ln n)$. Similar estimations are…

We introduce a notion of parity for transversals, and use it to show that in Latin squares of order $2 \bmod 4$, the number of transversals is a multiple of 4. We also demonstrate a number of relationships (mostly congruences modulo 4)…

In this note, we study large deviations of the number $\mathbf{N}$ of intercalates ($2\times2$ combinatorial subsquares which are themselves Latin squares) in a random $n\times n$ Latin square. In particular, for constant $\delta>0$ we…

Let $F$ be a graph on $r$ vertices and let $G$ be a graph on $n$ vertices. Then an $F$-factor in $G$ is a subgraph of $G$ composed of $n/r$ vertex-disjoint copies of $F$, if $r$ divides $n$. In other words, an $F$-factor yields a partition…