Group divisible designs with two associate classes: \(n=2\) or \(m=2\) (Q1268606)

A group divisible design \(\text{GDD} (n,m;k; \lambda_1, \lambda_2)\) is an ordered triple \((V,G,B)\) where \(V\) is a set of size \(mn\), \(G\) is a partition of \(V\) into \(m\) sets (called groups) each of size \(n\), and \(B\) is a collection of subsets of \(V\) each of size \(k\) (called blocks) such that (1) each pair of symbols that occur together in the same group occur in exactly \(\lambda_1\) blocks, and (2) each pair of symbols that are not in the same group occur together in exactly \(\lambda_2\) blocks. In earlier work, necessary and sufficient conditions were given for the existence of \(\text{GDD}(n,m;3;\lambda_1,\lambda_2)\) for all \(m,n\geq 3\) with \(\lambda_1\geq 0\) and \(\lambda_2\geq 1\). In this paper the authors complete the solution of the existence problem for \(\text{GDD}(n,m;3;\lambda_1,\lambda_2)\) by giving necessary and sufficient conditions for existence in the cases where either \(m=2\) or \(n=2\). The final result can be stated as follows: Let \(n,m,\lambda_2\geq 1\) and \(\lambda_1\geq 0\), then there exists a \(\text{GDD}(n,m;3;\lambda_1,\lambda_2)\) if and only if (1) 2 divides \(\lambda_1(n-1)+\lambda_2(m-1)n\), (2) 3 divides \(\lambda_1 mn(n-1)+\lambda_2m(m-1)n^2\), (3) if \(m=3\), then \(\lambda_1 \geq\lambda_2n/2(n-1)\), and (4) if \(n=2\), then \(\lambda_1 \leq(m-1)\lambda_2\).