Howell designs with sub-designs (Q1320392)

A Howell design \(H(s,2n)\) of side \(s\) and order \(2n\), is an \(s \times s\) array in which each cell is either empty or contains an unordered pair of elements from some \((2n)\)-set \(V\) such that: (1) every element of \(V\) occurs in precisely one cell of each row and each column, and (2) every ordered pair of elements from \(V\) is in at most one cell of the array. The definition implies that \(n \leq s \leq 2n-1\). An \(H(2n-1,2n)\) is a Room square of order \(2n-1\) and at the other extreme, the existence of a pair of mutually orthogonaly latin squares of order \(n\) implies the existence of an \(H(n,2n)\). Howell designs thus provide natural combinatorial objects. The authors are interested in the existence of Howell designs which contain as a subarray another Howell design. This is a natural extension of Room square and latin square results since the existence of Room squares with Room square subdesigns and a pair of mutually orthogonal latin squares with latin square subdesigns have previously been considered. While the details are too complicated to discuss here, the authors consider the very general problem of constructing Howell designs \(H(s,2n)\) which contain as subdesigns \(H(t,2m)\). They provide bounds on the parameters of such designs as well as several constructions for the general case. Consideration is also given to determining the spectrum for Howell designs in the cases where \(t=m\) or \(t=2m-1\). The paper contains 36 references and thus it provides an excellent survey of this general and fascinating problem.