Super-regular Steiner 2-designs (Q2101181)

A \(t\)-\((v, k, \lambda)\) design is a pair \(D = (V, \mathcal{B})\) with \(V\) a set of \(v\) points and \(\mathcal{B}\) a collection of \(k\)-subsets of \(V\), called blocks, such that any \(t\)-subset of \(V\) is contained in exactly \(\lambda\) blocks. A \(t\)-\((v, k, 1)\) design is also called a Steiner \(t\)-design. An isomorphism between two designs \((V, \mathcal{B})\) and \((V', \mathcal{B}')\) is a bijection \(f: V \longrightarrow V'\) turning \(\mathcal{B}\) into \(\mathcal{B}'\). An automorphism group of a design \(D =(V, \mathcal{B})\) is a group \(G\) of permutations on \(V\) leaving \(\mathcal{B}\) invariant. If \(G\) acts regularly on the points, then \(D\) is said to be regular under \(G\) (briefly \(G\)-regular). Up to isomorphism, a \(G\)-regular design has point set \(G\) and any translate \(B+g\) of any block \(B\) is a block as well. A design \((V, \mathcal{B})\) is additive under an abelian group \(G\) (or briefly \(G\)-additive) if, up to isomorphism, \(V \subset G\) and \(B\) is zero-sum for any block \(B\in \mathcal{B}\). Further, If \(\mathcal{B}\) is precisely the set of all zero-sum \(k\)-subsets of \(V\), then the design is strongly \(G\)-additive. A design is super-regular under an abelian group \(G\) (or briefly \(G\)-super-regular) if it is \(G\)-regular and strictly \(G\)-additive at the same time. The only known Steiner 2-designs that are \(G\)-additive for some \(G\) have block size which is either a prime power or a prime power plus one. Indeed they are the point-line designs of the affine spaces \(\mathrm{AG}(n, q)\), the point-line designs of the projective planes \(\mathrm{PG}(2, q)\), the point-line designs of the projective spaces \(\mathrm{PG}(2, q)\) and a sporadic example of a \(2\)-\((8191,7,1)\) design. In this paper, the authors first give two elementary necessary conditions for the existence of a strictly \(G\)-additive \(2\)-\((v, k, 1)\) design: \(G\) cannot have exactly one involution, and every prime factor of \(v\) must divide \(k\). Then they show that any super-regular design can be completely described in terms of differences. In particular, they prove that a sufficient condition for the existence of a \((G \times F_q)\)-super-regular design with \(G\) a non-binary group of order \(k\) and \(q \) a power of a prime divisor of \(k\) is the existence of an additive \((G \times F_q, G \times \{0\}, k, 1)\) difference family. They also present some applications of strong difference families, difference matrices, and cyclotomy. The main result of the paper is that there are infinitely many values of \(v\) for which there exists a super-regular, and therefore additive, \(2\)-\((v, k, 1)\) design whenever \(k\) is neither singly even nor of the form \(2^n3 \geq 12.\) The case \(k\equiv 2\) (mod 4) is a genuine exception whereas \(k = 2^n3\geq 12\) is at the moment a possible exception. The authors also find super-regular \(2\)-\((p^n, p, 1)\) designs with \(p \in\{5, 7\}\) and \(n \geq 3\) which are not isomorphic to the point-line design of \(\mathrm{AG}(n, p)\).