Coverings of complete bipartite graphs and associated structures (Q1339873)

\textit{A. Gardiner} [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. B 16, 274-281 (1974; Zbl 0267.05112)] showed that a distance-regular \(q\)-fold covering of the complete bipartite graph \(K(q,q)\) is equivalent to the existence of a projective plane. The existence of 2-fold coverings of \(K(2m,2m)\) has been shown equivalent to the existence of an Hadamard matrix of dimension \(2m\) (see, for example, \textit{J. Shawe-Taylor} [Regularity and transitivity in graphs, Ph.D. Thesis, RHBNC, University of London (1986)]). In the present paper, a construction is given of distance- regular \(q\)-fold covering graphs of \(K(q^ k, q^ k)\), where \(q\) is a prime power and \(k\) is a positive integer. Relations to the existence of associated distance-biregular graphs are also considered, leading to the construction of a family of distance-bitransitive graphs.