New constructions of divisible designs (Q687138)

A divisible design with parameters \((m,n,k,\lambda_ 1,\lambda_ 2)\) is an incidence structure consisting of \(m \cdot n\) points divided into \(m\) classes of size \(n\) such that any two distinct points in the same class are joined by \(\lambda_ 1\) blocks and by \(\lambda_ 2\) blocks, otherwise. The block size is \(k\). The author gives two new constructions of symmetric divisible designs (where symmetric means that the dual incidence structure is a divisible design with the same parameters). He constructs divisible difference sets which give rise to divisible designs. His series with parameters \[ \bigl( p^{2a} (p+1), p^ 2,p^{2a+1} (p+1),p^{2a+1},p^{2a}(p+1) \bigr)\;(p \text{ prime}) \] consists of semi-regular divisible designs which are quite rare (the design is semi-regular if \(k>\lambda_ 1\) and if an incidence matrix is singular). The second family of \((p^{a-1}+p^{a-2}+\cdots+p+2\), \(p^{a+2}\), \(p^ a(p^ a+p^{a-1}+\cdots+p+1)\), \(p^ a(p^{a- 1}+p^{a-2}+\cdots+p+1)\), \(p^{a-1} (p^ a+p^{a-1}+\cdots+p^ 2+2))\)-designs can be thought of as a generalization of Menon-Hadamard difference sets in 2-groups.