On mutually orthogonal extraordinary supersquares (Q2240654)

The authors list all complete sets of mutually orthogonal order-9 extraordinary supersquares. If \(d\) is prime power, then a square of order \(d\) is a partition \(S=\{A_1,\dots ,A_d\}\) of \(F_d\times F_d\) where \(|A_i|=d\) for \(1\leq i\leq d\). A square \(S\) can be identified with an actual square grid of numbers by viewing \(A_i\) as the collection of grid locations housing symbol \(i\). A square \(S_A\) is a supersquare if it consists of cosets of an order-\(d\) subgroup \(A\) of \(F_d\times F_d\), and is an extraordinary supersquare if in addition the subgroup \(A\) satisfies a trace condition. Two squares \(S_1=\{A_1,\dots ,A_n\}\) and \(S_2=\{B_1,\dots , B_n\}\) are orthogonal if whenever \(u,v\in A_i\cap B_j\) we have \(u=v\). Fairly quickly one can see that there are at most \(d+1\) mutually orthogonal supersquares of order \(d\), and that a complete set can be obtained by letting the corresponding subgroups \(A\) be certain \(1\)-dimensional subspaces of \(F_d\times F_d\) that intersect trivially. Further, because each subgroup \(A\) is a \(1\)-dimensional subspace, each supersquare in this complete set is actually an extraordinary supersquare. However, it is possible, and more complicated, to construct complete sets of mutually orthogonal extraordinary supersquares where the subgroups \(A\) are not necessarily vector subspaces of \(F_d\times F_d\). In the case \(d=9\), the authors construct all such complete sets. These are naturally stratified into four types.