Cyclic partitions of complete uniform hypergraphs (Q1960272)

Summary: By \(K_n^{(k)}\) we denote the complete \(k\)-uniform hypergraph of order \(n\), \(1\leq k\leq n-1\), i.e., the hypergraph with the set \(V_n= \{1,2,\dots,n\}\) of vertices and the set \(\binom{V_n}{k}\) of edges. If there exists a permutation \(\sigma\) of the set \(V_n\) such that \(\{E,\sigma(E),\dots, \sigma^{q-1}(E)\}\) is a partition of the set \(\binom{V_n}{k}\) then we call it cyclic \(q\)-partition of \(K_n^{(k)}\) and \(\sigma\) is said to be a \((q,k)\)-complementing. In the paper, for arbitrary integers \(k\), \(q\) and \(n\), we give a necessary and sufficient condition for a permutation to be \((q,k)\)-complementing permutation of \(K_n^{(k)}\). By \(\widetilde{K}_n\) we denote the hypergraph with the set of vertices \(V_n\) and the set of edges \(2^{V_n}-\{\emptyset,V_n\}\). If there is a permutation \(\sigma\) of \(V_n\) and a set \(E\subset 2^{V_n}- \{\emptyset,V_n\}\) such that \(\{E,\sigma(E),\dots, \sigma^{p-1}(E)\}\) is a \(p\)-partition of \(2^{V_n}-\{\emptyset,V_n\}\) then we call it a cyclic \(p\)-partition of \(K_n\) and we say that \(\sigma\) is \(p\)-complementing. We prove that \(\widetilde{K}_n\) has a cyclic \(p\)-partition if and only if \(p\) is prime and \(n\) is a power of \(p\) (and \(n>p\)). Moreover, any \(p\)-complementing permutation is cyclic.