On resolvable Steiner 2-designs and maximal arcs in projective planes

A combinatorial characterization of resolvable Steiner 2-$(v,k,1)$ designs embeddable as maximal arcs in a projective plane of order $(v-k)/(k-1)$ is proved, and a generalization of a conjecture by Andries Brouwer \cite{Br} is formulated.Comment: Submitted to Designs, Codes and Cryptograph

High-rate self-synchronizing codes

Self-synchronization under the presence of additive noise can be achieved by allocating a certain number of bits of each codeword as markers for synchronization. Difference systems of sets are combinatorial designs which specify the positions of synchronization markers in codewords in such a way that the resulting error-tolerant self-synchronizing codes may be realized as cosets of linear codes. Ideally, difference systems of sets should sacrifice as few bits as possible for a given code length, alphabet size, and error-tolerance capability. However, it seems difficult to attain optimality with respect to known bounds when the noise level is relatively low. In fact, the majority of known optimal difference systems of sets are for exceptionally noisy channels, requiring a substantial amount of bits for synchronization. To address this problem, we present constructions for difference systems of sets that allow for higher information rates while sacrificing optimality to only a small extent. Our constructions utilize optimal difference systems of sets as ingredients and, when applied carefully, generate asymptotically optimal ones with higher information rates. We also give direct constructions for optimal difference systems of sets with high information rates and error-tolerance that generate binary and ternary self-synchronizing codes.Comment: 9 pages, no figure, 2 tables. Final accepted version for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. Material presented in part at the International Symposium on Information Theory and its Applications, Honolulu, HI USA, October 201

Counting Steiner triple systems with classical parameters and prescribed rank

By a famous result of Doyen, Hubaut and Vandensavel \cite{DHV}, the 2-rank of a Steiner triple system on $2^n-1$ points is at least $2^n -1 -n$, and equality holds only for the classical point-line design in the projective geometry $PG(n-1,2)$. It follows from results of Assmus \cite{A} that, given any integer $t$ with $1 \leq t \leq n-1$, there is a code $C_{n,t}$ containing representatives of all isomorphism classes of STS$(2^n-1)$ with 2-rank at most $2^n -1 -n + t$. Using a mixture of coding theoretic, geometric, design theoretic and combinatorial arguments, we prove a general formula for the number of distinct STS$(2^n-1)$ with 2-rank at most $2^n -1 -n + t$ 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$(2^n-1)$ with 2-rank exactly (or at most) $2^n -1 -n + t$. 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$(3^n)$ with 3-rank at most (or exactly) $3^n -1 -n + t$. 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.Comment: 27 page

Casimir amplitudes in a quantum spherical model with long-range interaction

A $d$-dimensional quantum model system confined to a general hypercubical geometry with linear spatial size $L$ and ``temporal size'' $1/T$ ($T$ - temperature of the system) is considered in the spherical approximation under periodic boundary conditions. For a film geometry in different space dimensions $\frac 12\sigma <d<\frac 32\sigma$, where $0<\sigma \leq 2$ is a parameter controlling the decay of the long-range interaction, the free energy and the Casimir amplitudes are given. We have proven that, if $d=\sigma$, the Casimir amplitude of the model, characterizing the leading temperature corrections to its ground state, is $\Delta =-16\zeta(3)/[5\sigma(4\pi)^{\sigma/2}\Gamma (\sigma /2)]$. The last implies that the universal constant $\tilde{c}=4/5$ of the model remains the same for both short, as well as long-range interactions, if one takes the normalization factor for the Gaussian model to be such that $\tilde{c}=1$. This is a generalization to the case of long-range interaction of the well known result due to Sachdev. That constant differs from the corresponding one characterizing the leading finite-size corrections at zero temperature which for $d=\sigma=1$ is $\tilde c=0.606$.Comment: 10 pages latex, no figures, to appear in EPJB (2000

The twisted Grassmann graph is the block graph of a design

In this note, we show that the twisted Grassmann graph constructed by van Dam and Koolen is the block graph of the design constructed by Jungnickel and Tonchev. We also show that the full automorphism group of the design is isomorphic to the full automorphism group of the twisted Grassmann graph.Comment: 5 pages. A section on the automorphism group has been adde