Avoiding partial Latin squares and intricacy (Q1377867)

An \(n\times n\) array where each cell contains at most one element from the set \(\{1,2, \dots, n\}\) is called avoidable if there exists a Latin square of order \(n\) that differs from the array in every cell. A partial Latin square of order \(n\) is an \(n\times n\) array such that every cell contains at most one symbol and every symbol appears at most once in each row and column. The authors show that any partial Latin square of order \(2k\) or of order \(3k\), for \(k \geq 2\), is avoidable. They also show that partial Latin squares of odd order at least 7 with empty last row and column are avoidable and conjecture that any partial Latin square of odd order at least 5 is avoidable. The intricacy (introduced by \textit{D. Daykin} and \textit{R. Häggkvist} [Am. Math. Mon. 88, 446 (1981)]) of the problem of completing a partial Latin square is the smallest integer \(k\) such that any partial Latin square of order \(n\) can be partitioned into at most \(k\) parts, each of which can be completed to a Latin square of order \(n\). Here, the authors show that the intricacy of avoiding a partial Latin square of order \(n>1\) is 2, and also study and conjecture about the intricacy of avoiding more general arrays.