Completing partial Latin squares with blocks of non-empty cells (Q5964988)

A Latin array is an array of symbols in which no symbol is repeated within any row or within any column. A Latin square is an \(n\times n\) Latin array containing exactly \(n\) distinct symbols. A partial Latin square (PLS) is a matrix in which some cells may be empty and in which any two filled cells in the same row or column must contain distinct symbols. A PLS is completable if the empty cells can be filled to produce a Latin square. \textit{T. Denley} and \textit{R. Häggkvist} [Eur. J. Comb. 21, No. 7, 877--880 (2000; Zbl 0983.05020)] conjectured that any PLS of order \(nr\) is completable if its filled cells lie in \(n-1\) disjoint \(r\times r\) submatrices. The present paper proves two special cases of this conjecture. The first case is when the filled cells consist of \(m\) subsquares of orders \(rt_1,\dots,rt_m\) where \(n>t_1^2+\dots+t_m^2\). The second result concerns PLS of order \(nr\) in which the filled cells form \(n\) copies of some \(r\times r\) Latin array, with different copies not sharing a row or column. They show that such a PLS is completable if \(n>r\). Non-completable examples are provided for \(n<r\). The \(n=r\) case is not resolved, but such PLS are conjectured to always be completable.