Subspace partitions of \(\mathbb{F}_q^n\) containing direct sums. II: General case (Q2173320)

Let \(q\) be a prime power and let \(\mathbb{F}_{q}^n\) denote the \(n\)-dimensional vector space over the finite field \(\mathbb{F}_q\). A subspace partition (or equivalently a vector space partition) \(\Pi\) of \(\mathbb{F}_{q}^n\) is a collection of subspaces of \(\mathbb{F}_{q}^n\) such that any two subspaces in \(\Pi\) have zero intersection and every nonzero vector in \(\mathbb{F}_{q}^n\) appears in exactly one element of \(\Pi\). A subspace partition \(\Pi\) contains a direct sum if there are \(r\) subspaces \(W_i\in \Pi\) such that \(W_1\oplus\cdots \oplus W_r = \mathbb{F}_{q}^n\) for some \(r\ge 1\). Let \(\mathcal{P}_{\mathcal{D}} (\mathbb{F}_{q}^n)\) be the set of subspace partition of \(\mathbb{F}_{q}^n\) which contain a direct sum. For any positive integer \(n\), let \(\mathbf{n}\) denote a set of size \(n\), \(\mathcal{P}(\mathbf{n})\) denote the collection of set partitions of \(n\), and \(\mathcal{P}(n)\) denote the collection integer partitions of \(n\). In this paper, the authors argue in favor of considering the set \(\mathcal{P}_{\mathcal{D}}(\mathbb{F}_{q}^n)\) to be a valid \(q\)-analogue of \(\mathcal{P}(\mathbf{n})\), and they prove a theorem that gives necessary conditions for a subspace partition to be in \(\mathcal{P}_{\mathcal{D}}(\mathbb{F}_{q}^n)\). This generalizes a result in a previous paper of theirs, concerning subspace partitions containing at most two distinct subspace dimensions. For Part I see [the authors, Discrete Math. 341, No. 7, 1850--1863 (2018; Zbl 1393.51001)].