Latin squares with five disjoint subsquares

DOI10.1002/JCD.21960MaRDI QIDQ7030812zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors T. Kemp

Publication date 7 February 2025

Published in Journal of Combinatorial Designs (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1002/JCD.21960

zbMATH Keywords

Fuchs' problemLatin squareoutline rectanglerealizationsubquasigroupsubsquare

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Orthogonal arrays, Latin squares, Room squares (05B15)

Review text

A Latin square is a square matrix in which each row and column is a permutation of the same set of symbols. A subsquare is a submatrix which is itself a Latin square. In this and some earlier work, a set of subsquares is called disjoint if no pair of them has any row, column, or symbol in common. (In the reviewer's opinion a much better name for this property would be ``independent. The name ``disjoint is best reserved for describing the weaker property when two subsquares do not overlap on any cell. Nevertheless, in this review he will follow the author's choice.)\N\NFor a partition \(n=h_1+\dots+h_k\) of a positive integer \(n\), Fuchs asked whether there exists a Latin square of order \(n\) containing disjoint subsquares of orders \(h_1,\dots,h_k\). An equivalent question is whether there exists a quasigroup of order \(n\) that is the union of disjoint subquasigroups of orders \(h_1,\dots,h_k\). Fuchs' question has been answered in certain special cases, including when \(k\le4\). The present work finds necessary and sufficient conditions in the case when \(k=5\). In doing so, it confirms a conjecture of \textit{J. Kuhl} et al. [Australas. J. Comb. 74, Part 1, 46--60 (2019; Zbl 1419.05035)]. The result is obtained by making clever use of rational outline rectangles, developing a method pioneered by \textit{A. J. W. Hilton} [Math. Program. Study 13, 68--77 (1980; Zbl 0438.05016)].

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Cited in

(1)

• Further results on Latin squares with disjoint subsquares using rational outline squares

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