Parity of transversals of Latin squares

We introduce a notion of parity for transversals, and use it to show that in Latin squares of order $2 \bmod 4$, the number of transversals is a multiple of 4. We also demonstrate a number of relationships (mostly congruences modulo 4) involving $E_1,\dots, E_n$, where $E_i$ is the number of diagonals of a given Latin square that contain exactly $i$ different symbols. Let $A(i\mid j)$ denote the matrix obtained by deleting row $i$ and column $j$ from a parent matrix $A$. Define $t_{ij}$ to be the number of transversals in $L(i\mid j)$, for some fixed Latin square $L$. We show that $t_{ab}\equiv t_{cd}\bmod2$ for all $a,b,c,d$ and $L$. Also, if $L$ has odd order then the number of transversals of $L$ equals $t_{ab}$ mod 2. We conjecture that $t_{ac} + t_{bc} + t_{ad} + t_{bd} \equiv 0 \bmod 4$ for all $a,b,c,d$. In the course of our investigations we prove several results that could be of interest in other contexts. For example, we show that the number of perfect matchings in a $k$-regular bipartite graph on $2n$ vertices is divisible by $4$ when $n$ is odd and $k\equiv0\bmod 4$. We also show that $${\rm per}\, A(a \mid c)+{\rm per}\, A(b \mid c)+{\rm per}\, A(a \mid d)+{\rm per}\, A(b \mid d) \equiv 0 \bmod 4$$ for all $a,b,c,d$, when $A$ is an integer matrix of odd order with all row and columns sums equal to $k\equiv2\bmod4$

A lower bound on the maximum permanent in Λnk

AbstractLet Pnk be the maximum value achieved by the permanent over Λnk, the set of (0,1)-matrices of order n with exactly k ones in each row and column. Brègman proved that Pnk⩽k!n/k. It is shown here that Pnk⩾k!tr! where n=tk+r and 0⩽r<k. From this simple bound we derive that (Pnk)1/n∼k!1/k whenever k=o(n) and deduce a number of structural results about matrices which achieve Pnk. These include restrictions for large n and k on the number of components which may be drawn from Λk+ck for a constant c⩾1.Our results can be directly applied to maximisation problems dealing with the number of extensions to Latin rectangles or the number of perfect matchings in regular bipartite graphs