Maximal nonassociativity via fields (Q2211334)

A finite quasigroup \(Q\) is \emph{maximally nonassociative} if \[ |\{ (x,y,z) \in Q^3 \,:\, (xy)z = x(yz)\}| \le |Q|. \] In the present paper, the authors show that there exists a maximally nonassociative quasigroup of order \(n\) if \begin{itemize} \item \(n \ge 9\) is a prime power with \(n \equiv 1 \pmod 4\), or \item \(n \ge 19\) is a prime power with \(n \equiv 3 \pmod 4\), or \item the \(p\)-adic valuation \(\nu_p (n)\) satisfies \(\nu_p(n) \neq 1\) for \(p \in \{3,5,7,11\}\), \(\nu_2 (n)\) is even and \(\nu_2 (n) \not\in \{2,4\}\). \end{itemize} The maximally nonassociative quasigroups of prime power order \(q\) are explicitly constructed from the finite field \(\mathbb{F}_q\) using a parameter \(a \in \mathbb{F}_q\); the authors use the Weil bound on certain character sums to show that a suitable \(a\) exists.