Mutually orthogonal Latin squares based on cellular automata (Q2291667)

For prime powers \(q\), the authors consider Latin squares of order \(q^{d-1}\) associated to linear bipermutive cellular automata (LBCA) with alphabet of size \(q\) and local rule of diameter \(d\). The LBCA Latin squares form a subclass of the linear Latin squares of order \(q^{d-1}\) over a finite field \(F_q\) of order \(q\). The local rule for the LCBA automata is determined by a \(d\)-tuple \((a_0,\dots ,a_{d-1})\in F_q^{d-1}\), which can be identified with a polynomial \(p(x)=a_0+a_1x+\cdots +a_{d-1}x^{d-1}\in F_q[x]\). Because the automata is bipermutive, the coefficients \(a_0\) and \(a_{d-1}\) are forced to be nonzero. Therefore, this special class of linear Latin squares can be identified with the polynomials \(p(x)\) of degree \(d-1\) with nonzero constant term. Two LBCA Latin squares are orthogonal exactly when their corresponding polynomials are co-prime. By counting pairs of co-prime polynomials, the authors are able to count orthogonal LBCA Latin square pairs. They also present a construction for families of pairwise mutually orthogonal LBCA Latin squares.