Cyclotomic orthomorphisms of finite fields

AbstractIn this paper, we give explicit formulas for the number of cyclotomic orthomorphisms of Fq of index 3,4,5,6 for certain classes of prime powers q. We also give an explicit formula for the number of cyclotomic mappings of index 2 that are strong complete mappings of Fp for prime p

Row-Hamiltonian Latin squares and Falconer varieties

A \emph{Latin square} is a matrix of symbols such that each symbol occurs exactly once in each row and column. A Latin square $L$ is \emph{row-Hamiltonian} if the permutation induced by each pair of distinct rows of $L$ is a full cycle permutation. Row-Hamiltonian Latin squares are equivalent to perfect $1$-factorisations of complete bipartite graphs. For the first time, we exhibit a family of Latin squares that are row-Hamiltonian and also achieve precisely one of the related properties of being column-Hamiltonian or symbol-Hamiltonian. This family allows us to construct non-trivial, anti-associative, isotopically $L$-closed loop varieties, solving an open problem posed by Falconer in 1970

Isomorphisms of quadratic quasigroups

Let $\mathbb{F}$ be a finite field of odd order and $a,b\in\mathbb{F}\setminus\{0,1\}$ be such that $\chi(a) = \chi(b)$ and $\chi(1-a)=\chi(1-b)$, where $\chi$ is the extended quadratic character. Let $Q_{a,b}$ be the quasigroup upon $\mathbb{F}$ defined by $(x,y)\mapsto x+a(y-x)$ if $\chi(y-x) \ge 0$, and $(x,y)\mapsto x+b(y-x)$ if $\chi(y-x) = -1$. We show that $Q_{a,b} \cong Q_{c,d}$ if and only if $\{a,b\}= \{\alpha(c),\alpha(d)\}$ for some $\alpha\in \textrm{aut}(\mathbb{F})$. We also characterise $\textrm{aut}(Q_{a,b})$ and exhibit further properties, including establishing when $Q_{a,b}$ is a Steiner quasigroup or is commutative, entropic, left or right distributive, flexible or semisymmetric. In proving our results we also characterise the minimal subquasigroups of $Q_{a,b}$

Latin bitrades derived from quasigroup autoparatopisms

In 2008, Cavenagh and Dr\'{a}pal, et al, described a method of constructing Latin trades using groups. The Latin trades that arise from this construction are entry-transitive (that is, there always exists an autoparatopism of the Latin trade mapping any ordered triple to any other ordered triple). Moreover, useful properties of the Latin trade can be established using properties of the group. However, the construction does not give a direct embedding of the Latin trade into any particular Latin square. In this paper, we generalize the above to construct Latin trades embedded in a Latin square $L$, via the autoparatopism group of the quasigroup with Cayley table $L$. We apply this theory to identify non-trivial entry-transitive trades in some group operation tables as well as in Latin squares that arise from quadratic orthomorphism

Uncoverings on graphs and network reliability

We propose a network protocol similar to the $k$-tree protocol of Itai and Rodeh [{\em Inform.\ and Comput.}\ {\bf 79} (1988), 43--59]. To do this, we define an {\em $t$-uncovering-by-bases} for a connected graph $G$ to be a collection $\mathcal{U}$ of spanning trees for $G$ such that any $t$-subset of edges of $G$ is disjoint from at least one tree in $\mathcal{U}$, where $t$ is some integer strictly less than the edge connectivity of $G$. We construct examples of these for some infinite families of graphs. Many of these infinite families utilise factorisations or decompositions of graphs. In every case the size of the uncovering-by-bases is no larger than the number of edges in the graph and we conjecture that this may be true in general.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure