On directed designs with block size five (Q1976887)

A \(t\)-\((v,k,\lambda)\) directed design is a pair \(({\mathcal P},{\mathcal B})\) where \({\mathcal P}\) is a set of \(v\) elements, or points, and \({\mathcal B}\) is a collection of ordered \(k\)-tuples of distinct elements of \({\mathcal P}\), called blocks, with the property that every ordered \(t\)-tuple of distinct elements of \({\mathcal P}\) occurs in exactly \(\lambda\) blocks (as a subsequence). In this paper the authors restrict their attention to directed designs with \(\lambda = 1\), \(k = 5\) and \(t=3,\) 4. For \(t=3\) no designs were previously known. \textit{A. Mahmoodi} [Combinatorial and algorithmic aspects of directed designs, PhD thesis, University of Toronto (1995)] showed by computer search that there is no such design for \(v=5, 6\) or \(7\). The authors give an analytical proof of this result. They also construct the first known \(3\)-\((v,5,1)\) directed designs, namely for \(v=26\), 37. In particular, they have determined, by computer search, that there are precisely two non-isomorphic \(3\)-\((26,5,1)\) directed designs that are invariant under the group of mappings \(\{z \mapsto az+b\mid a,b \in Z_{26}\) and \((a,26)=1\}\). One of these can be used to show that there exists a \(3\)-\((25^n+1,5,1)\) directed design for any \(n \geq 1\). For the case \(t=4\), the authors construct \(4\)-\((v,5,1)\) directed designs for the new values \(v=7,8,13,18\) and \(48\). For \(v=8\), 18 and 48 the designs were constructed by hand or by computers assuming the action of a group of the form \(\text{PGL}_2(p^\alpha)\). For \(v=7\) the cyclic group \(\{z \mapsto z+b\mid b \in Z_7\}\) was used, and for \(v=13\) the Frobenius group \(\{z \mapsto az+b\mid a,b \in Z_{13}\) and \(a \neq 0\}\) was used. The existence of a \(4\)-\((7,5,1)\) directed design is of particular importance as it permits the construction of the first infinite class of \(4\)-\((v,5,1)\) directed designs, namely the set of \(4\)-\((2^n-1,5,1)\) directed designs for all \(n \geq 3\).