Counting Steiner triple systems with classical parameters and prescribed rank

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Abstract: By a famous result of Doyen, Hubaut and Vandensavel cite{DHV}, the 2-rank of a Steiner triple system on 2n1 points is at least 2n1n, and equality holds only for the classical point-line design in the projective geometry PG(n1,2). It follows from results of Assmus cite{A} that, given any integer t with 1leqtleqn1, there is a code Cn,t containing representatives of all isomorphism classes of STS(2n1) with 2-rank at most 2n1n+t. Using a mixture of coding theoretic, geometric, design theoretic and combinatorial arguments, we prove a general formula for the number of distinct STS(2n1) with 2-rank at most 2n1n+t contained in this code. This generalizes the only previously known cases, t=1, proved by Tonchev cite{T01} in 2001, t=2, proved by V. Zinoviev and D. Zinoviev cite{ZZ12} in 2012, and t=3 (V. Zinoviev and D. Zinoviev cite{ZZ13}, cite{ZZ13a} (2013), D. Zinoviev cite{Z16} (2016)), while also unifying and simplifying the proofs. This enumeration result allows us to prove lower and upper bounds for the number of isomorphism classes of STS(2n1) with 2-rank exactly (or at most) 2n1n+t. Finally, using our recent systematic study of the ternary block codes of Steiner triple systems cite{JT}, we obtain analogous results for the ternary case, that is, for STS(3n) with 3-rank at most (or exactly) 3n1n+t. We note that this work provides the first two infinite families of 2-designs for which one has non-trivial lower and upper bounds for the number of non-isomorphic examples with a prescribed p-rank in almost the entire range of possible ranks.





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