Bounds on the maximum number of Latin squares in a mutually quasi-orthogonal set (Q5937578)

Quasi-orthogonality was introduced by the first author in [J. Comb. Math. Comb. Comput. 26, 213-224 (1998; Zbl 0897.05016)], as a weakening of the standard notion of orthogonality for Latin squares. This paper proves some upper bounds on \(N_q(n)\), the maximum number of squares in a set of mutually quasi-orthogonal Latin squares (MQOLS) of order \(n\). It is shown that \(N_q(n)\leq R(n)\), where \(R(n)\) is the maximum number of rows in an equidistant permutation array of index 1 with \(n\) columns. This immediately gives a slight improvement on the best previous bound on \(N_q(n)\), although the bound is still quadratic in \(n\).NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThe paper shows some nice connections between MQOLS and other designs, including orthogonal frequency squares and generalized Room squares. The latter connection helps the authors to find a linear bound on \(N_q(n)\) in some very special cases, but the question remains as to whether a linear bound holds in general.NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThe statement and proof of Theorem 5 are erroneous; the word ``least'' should be replaced by ``most''.