Almost every Latin square has a decomposition into transversals
Combinatorics
2025-01-10 v1
Abstract
In 1782, Euler conjectured that no Latin square of order has a decomposition into transversals. While confirmed for by Tarry in 1900, Bose, Parker, and Shrikhande constructed counterexamples in 1960 for each with . We show that, in fact, counterexamples are extremely common, by showing that if a Latin square of order is chosen uniformly at random then with high probability it has a decomposition into transversals.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2501.05438,
title = {Almost every Latin square has a decomposition into transversals},
author = {Candida Bowtell and Richard Montgomery},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.05438},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
93 pages, 9 figures