Uniquely 3-colourable Steiner triple systems

DOI10.1016/S0097-3165(02)00016-XMaRDI QIDQ1865409zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Anthony D. Forbes

Publication date 26 March 2003

Published in Journal of Combinatorial Theory. Series A (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1016/S0097-3165(02)00016-X

zbMATH Keywords

3-colouringSteiner triple system

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Triple systems (05B07)

Review text

A (weak) 3-colouring of a Steiner triple system \(S\) of order \(v\) (or STS(\(v\))) is an assignment of colours from a set of cardinality 3 to the \(v\) points of \(S\) in such a way that every block contains at least two points with different colours. A 3-colouring is equitable if the cardinalities of the sets of points assigned each colour differ by at most one. If every 3-colouring of \(S\) is equitable then \(S\) is called 3-balanced. A 3-colouring of \(S\) is unique if every other 3-colouring can be obtained from the original colour assignment by a permutation of the colours. The authors define a type-I STS(\(v\)) as a 3-balanced STS(\(v\)) with a unique (necessarily equitable) 3-colouring, and a type-II STS(\(v\)) as an STS(\(v\)) with a unique 3-colouring which is non-equitable. They show that a type-I STS(\(v\)) exists for every admissible \(v \geq 25\). Since it is known that no type-I STS(\(v\)) exists for any \(v \leq 15\), the only remaining undecided cases are \(v = 19\) and \(21\). In addition they show that a type-II STS(\(v\)) exists for every admissible \(v \geq 25\). Since it is known that no type-II STS(\(v\)) exists for any \(v \leq 19\), the only remaining undecided case is \(v = 21\). Group divisible designs with block size 3 and Wilson's fundamental construction are important ingredients in the recursive construction results.

Recommendations

• On colourings of Steiner triple systems
• Balanced Steiner triple systems
• Equitable embeddings of Steiner triple systems
• Unbalanced Steiner triple systems
• Colouring Steiner systems with specified block colour patterns

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Cited in

(9)

• Unbalanced Steiner triple systems
• On colourings of Steiner triple systems
• 2 and 3-chromatic group divisible designs with block size 3
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1867225 (Why is no real title available?)
• Determination of the size of defining set for Steiner triple systems
• Colourings of star systems
• Properties of Steiner triple systems of order 21
• Colourings of path systems
• Ramsey goodness of k-uniform paths, or the lack thereof

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