Halving Steiner triple systems (Q686282)

A halving of a Steiner triple system (STS) is a partition of its triples into two classes, so that the set of triples in each class are isomorphic as hypergraphs. If such an isomorphism is an automorphism of the STS, the halving is called strong. STS that can be strongly halved are shown to exist if and only if the order is 1 or 9 modulo 24. Existence of STS that can be halved for orders congruent to 13 or 21 modulo 24 is left largely open. Generalizations of ``almost halving'', to higher indices, and to block size four are discussed.