A step towards Yuzvinsky's conjecture (Q1676790)

Summary: An intercalate matrix \(M\) of type \([r,s,n]\) is an \(r\times s\) matrix with entries in \(\{1,2,\ldots,n\}\) such that all entries in each row are distinct, all entries in each column are distinct, and all \(2 \times 2\) submatrices of \(M\) have either \(2\) or \(4\) distinct entries. Yuzvinsky's conjecture on intercalate matrices claims that the smallest \(n\) for which there is an intercalate matrix of type \([r,s,n]\) is the Hopf-Stiefel function \(r \circ s\). In this paper we prove that Yuzvinsky's conjecture is asymptotically true for \(\frac{5}{6}\) of integer pairs \((r,s)\). We prove the conjecture for \(r\leqslant 8\), and we study it in the range \(r,s\leqslant 32\).