Hadamard difference sets and related combinatorial objects in groups of order 144

In this paper we address an appealing and so far not completed combinatorial problem of difference set (DS) existence in groups of order 144. We apply our recently established method for DS construction which proves to be very efficient. The result is more than 5000 inequivalent (144, 66, 30) DSes obtained in 131 groups of order 144. The number of nonisomorphic symmetric designs rising from them is 1364. Using the obtained DSes as a source, new regular (144, 66, 30, 30) and (144, 65, 28, 30) partial difference sets are constructed, together with the corresponding strongly regular graphs. 43 non-isomorphic graphs of valency 66 are obtained and 78 of valency 65. The full automorphism groups of these graphs, as well as those of symmetric designs, are explored using the software package Magma

Intriguing sets of strongly regular graphs and their related structures

In this paper we outline a technique for constructing directed strongly regular graphs by using strongly regular graphs having a "nice" family of intriguing sets. Further, we investigate such a construction method for rank three strongly regular graphs having at most $45$ vertices. Finally, several examples of intriguing sets of polar spaces are provided

Partial geometric designs and difference families

We examine the designs produced by different types of difference families. Difference families have long been known to produce designs with well behaved automorphism groups. These designs provide the elegant solutions desired for applications. In this work, we explore the following question: Does every (named) design have a difference family analogue? We answer this question in the affirmative for partial geometric designs

Codes and Designs Related to Lifted MRD Codes

Lifted maximum rank distance (MRD) codes, which are constant dimension codes, are considered. It is shown that a lifted MRD code can be represented in such a way that it forms a block design known as a transversal design. A slightly different representation of this design makes it similar to a $q-$analog of a transversal design. The structure of these designs is used to obtain upper bounds on the sizes of constant dimension codes which contain a lifted MRD code. Codes which attain these bounds are constructed. These codes are the largest known codes for the given parameters. These transversal designs can be also used to derive a new family of linear codes in the Hamming space. Bounds on the minimum distance and the dimension of such codes are given.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. The material in this paper was presented in part in the 2011 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, Saint Petersburg, Russia, August 201

Between primitive and 2-transitive : synchronization and its friends

The second author was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) through the project CEMAT-CIÊNCIAS UID/Multi/ 04621/2013An automaton (consisting of a finite set of states with given transitions) is said to be synchronizing if there is a word in the transitions which sends all states of the automaton to a single state. Research on this topic has been driven by the Černý conjecture, one of the oldest and most famous problems in automata theory, according to which a synchronizing n-state automaton has a reset word of length at most (n − 1)2 . The transitions of an automaton generate a transformation monoid on the set of states, and so an automaton can be regarded as a transformation monoid with a prescribed set of generators. In this setting, an automaton is synchronizing if the transitions generate a constant map. A permutation group G on a set Ω is said to synchronize a map f if the monoid (G, f) generated by G and f is synchronizing in the above sense; we say G is synchronizing if it synchronizes every non-permutation. The classes of synchronizing groups and friends form an hierarchy of natural and elegant classes of groups lying strictly between the classes of primitive and 2-homogeneous groups. These classes have been floating around for some years and it is now time to provide a unified reference on them. The study of all these classes has been prompted by the Černý conjecture, but it is of independent interest since it involves a rich mix of group theory, combinatorics, graph endomorphisms, semigroup theory, finite geometry, and representation theory, and has interesting computational aspects as well. So as to make the paper self-contained, we have provided background material on these topics. Our purpose here is to present recent work on synchronizing groups and related topics. In addition to the results that show the connections between the various areas of mathematics mentioned above, we include a new result on the Černý conjecture (a strengthening of a theorem of Rystsov), some challenges to finite geometers (which classical polar spaces can be partitioned into ovoids?), some thoughts about infinite analogues, and a long list of open problems to stimulate further work.PostprintPeer reviewe

Linear sections of GL(4, 2)

For V = V (n; q); a linear section of GL(V ) = GL(n; q) is a vector subspace S of the n 2 -dimensional vector space End(V ) which is contained in GL(V ) [ f0g: We pose the problem, for given (n; q); of classifying the di erent kinds of maximal linear sections of GL(n; q): If S is any linear section of GL(n; q) then dim S n: The case of GL(4; 2) is examined fully. Up to a suitable notion of equiv- alence there are just two classes of 3-dimensional maximal normalized linear sections M3;M0 3 , and three classes M4;M0 4 ;M00 4 of 4-dimensional sections. The subgroups of GL(4; 2) generated by representatives of these ve classes are respectively G3 = A7; G 0 3 = GL(4; 2); G4 = Z15; G 0 4 = Z3 A5; G 00 4 = GL(4; 2): On various occasions use is made of an isomorphism T : A8 ! GL(4; 2): In particular a representative of the class M3 is the image under T of a subset f1; ::: ; 7g of A7 with the property that 1 i j is of order 6 for all i =6 j: The classes M3;M0 3 give rise to two classes of maximal partial spreads of order 9 in PG(7; 2); and the classes M0 4 ;M00 4 yield the two isomorphism classes of proper semi eld planes of order 16

An extensive English language bibliography on graph theory and its applications, supplement 1

Graph theory and its applications - bibliography, supplement