On critical perfect systems of difference sets (Q1343269)

A set \(D\) of integers is called a difference set if there is a set of integers \(A\) with \(0\in A\) such that \(D= \{a- b: a,b\in A, a>b\}\) and \(| D|= | A|(| A|- 1)/2\). The valency of \(D\) is \(| A|- 1\). A perfect system of difference sets with threshold \(c> 0\) is a partition of a consecutive run of integers, beginning with \(c\), into difference sets \(D_ r\) of size at least 3, i.e. of valency at least 2. A necessary condition for the existence of such a system is the so-called BKT-inequality. A system is called critical if this inequality is satisfied with equality. The author proves that a perfect critical system of difference sets with threshold \(c\) and no components of valency 2 necessarily consists of \(2c - 1\) components of valency 3. In addition to this interesting result, the author derives some new ``BKT-like'' inequalities.