English

Transversals in quasirandom latin squares

Combinatorics 2023-05-24 v2

Abstract

A transversal in an n×nn \times n latin square is a collection of nn entries not repeating any row, column, or symbol. Kwan showed that almost every n×nn \times n latin square has ((1+o(1))n/e2)n\bigl((1 + o(1)) n / e^2\bigr)^n transversals as nn \to \infty. Using a loose variant of the circle method we sharpen this to (e1/2+o(1))n!2/nn(e^{-1/2} + o(1)) n!^2 / n^n. Our method works for all latin squares satisfying a certain quasirandomness condition, which includes both random latin squares with high probability as well as multiplication tables of quasirandom groups.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2209.02180,
  title  = {Transversals in quasirandom latin squares},
  author = {Sean Eberhard and Freddie Manners and Rudi Mrazović},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.02180},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

26 pages, 3 figures. Final version incorporating referee's comments. To appear in Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society

R2 v1 2026-06-28T00:45:58.753Z