Existence of three HMOLS of types \(h^ n\) and \(2^ n3^ 1\) (Q1126282)

A \(3 \text{HMOLS}(h^n)\) consists of three holey mutually orthogonal Latin squares such that the \(n\) hole sets of size \(h\) partition the element set. The authors improve the known results by constructing 23 new \(3 \text{HMOLS}(h^n)\), thereby leaving 26 possible exceptions to the existence of \(3 \text{HMOLS}(h^n)\) if \(h\geq 2\) and \(n\geq 5\). They also show that the necessary condition \(n\geq 6\) is sufficient for the existence of \(3 \text{HMOLS}(2^n3^1)\) except possibly for 18 values of \(n\) (all less than 32). These results are used to reduce the number of possible exceptions to the existence of perfect Mendelsohn designs with block size five whenever the necessary condition is met.