English

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 n2  mod  4n\equiv 2\; \textrm{mod}\; 4 has a decomposition into transversals. While confirmed for n=6n=6 by Tarry in 1900, Bose, Parker, and Shrikhande constructed counterexamples in 1960 for each n2  mod  4n\equiv 2\; \textrm{mod}\; 4 with n10n\geq 10. We show that, in fact, counterexamples are extremely common, by showing that if a Latin square of order nn 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

R2 v1 2026-06-28T21:01:42.761Z