A construction and decomposition of orthogonal arrays with non-prime-power numbers of symbols on the complement of a Baer subplane (Q310234)

An \((m,s;k,\lambda)\) group divisible design that satisfies the property that any class and any block have precisely one point in common is an orthogonal array. Orthogonal arrays are equivalent to transversal designs. In [Util. Math. 43, 65--70 (1993; Zbl 0797.05020)], \textit{R. Fuji-Hara} and \textit{S. Kamimura} gave a method for constructing orthogonal arrays of strength 2 on the complement of a Baer subplane with \(q(q-1)\) symbols for a prime power \(q\). The authors prove that these orthogonal arrays can be decomposed into smaller orthogonal arrays of strength 2 with the same number of constraints and symbols but with smaller sizes and indices. These new orthogonal arrays can be seen as an orbit of the point set of a Baer subplane with the action of a projective linear group. Specifically, they show that for such arrays \(D\), if \(q\) is not \(2 \pmod{3}\) then \(D\) can be decomposed into \({{q(q-1)} \over {3}}\) mutually disjoint orthogonal arrays of the form \(\mathrm{OA}(q^2+q+1, q(q-1);q(q+1))\) and if \(q\) is \(2 \pmod{3}\) then \(D\) can be decomposed into \({{q(q-1)-2} \over {3}}\) mutually disjoint orthogonal arrays of the form \(\mathrm{OA}(q^2+q+1, q(q-1);q(q+1))\) and two of the form \(\mathrm{OA}(q^2+q+1, q(q-1);q(q+1)/3).\) Moreover, it is shown that these new orthogonal arrays cannot be constructed from Bush's direct product construction.