Extendibility of Latin Hypercuboids
Abstract
A Latin hypercuboid of order is a -dimensional matrix of dimensions , with symbols from a set of cardinality such that each symbol occurs at most once in each axis-parallel line. If the hypercuboid is a Latin hypercube. The Latin hypercuboid is \emph{completable} if it is contained in a Latin hypercube of the same order and dimension. It is \emph{extendible} if it can have one extra layer added. In this note we consider which Latin hypercuboids are completable/extendible. We also consider a generalisation that involves multidimensional arrays of sets that satisfy certain balance properties. The extendibility problem corresponds to choosing representatives from the sets in a way that is analogous to a choice of a Hall system of distinct representatives, but in higher dimensions. The completability problem corresponds to partitioning the sets into such SDRs. We provide a construction for such an array of sets that does not have the property analogous to completability. A related concept was introduced by H\"aggkvist under the name -array. We generalise a construction of -arrays credited to Pebody, but show that it cannot be used to build the arrays that we need.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2502.08868,
title = {Extendibility of Latin Hypercuboids},
author = {Candida Bowtell and Alice Devillers and André Kündgen and Padraig Ó Catháin and Ian M. Wanless},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.08868},
year = {2025}
}