Maximally nonassociative quasigroups via quadratic orthomorphisms

Abstract: A quasigroup

Q

is called maximally nonassociative if for

x, y, z i n Q

we have that

x c d o t (y c d o t z) = (x c d o t y) c d o t z

only if

x = y = z

. We show that, with finitely many exceptions, there exists a maximally nonassociative quasigroup of order

n

whenever

n

is not of the form

n = 2 p_{1}

or

n = 2 p_{1} p_{2}

for primes

p_{1}, p_{2}

with

p_{1} l e p_{2} < 2 p_{1}

.

Review text

A quasigroup is maximally nonassociative if there is no triple of elements \((a,b,c)\) with \(a(bc)=(ab)c\) except for the triples with \(a=b=c\). It has been suggested that they could be used in cryptography but an early conjecture was that no such quasigroups exist. Computer search produced a maximally nonassociative quasigroup of order 9 but progress on the existence of such quasigroups was limited before this paper. Here, a large step to answering the question of existence is taken. The main theorem is that they exist for orders \(n\geq 9\) with a short list of possible exceptions. The construction is based on the existence of certain orthomorphisms of abelian groups and finite fields. The methods are intricate and bring in the Weil bound. The paper provides an interesting example of how problems in nonassociativity can stimulate results in wider areas.

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