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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 , the number of transversals is a multiple of
4. We also demonstrate a number of relationships (mostly congruences modulo 4)
involving , where is the number of diagonals of a given
Latin square that contain exactly different symbols.
Let denote the matrix obtained by deleting row and column
from a parent matrix . Define to be the number of transversals
in , for some fixed Latin square . We show that for all and . Also, if has odd order then the
number of transversals of equals mod 2. We conjecture that for all .
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 -regular bipartite graph on vertices is divisible by
when is odd and . We also show that for all , when is an integer matrix of odd
order with all row and columns sums equal to
Multipartite hypergraphs achieving equality in Ryser's conjecture
A famous conjecture of Ryser is that in an -partite hypergraph the
covering number is at most times the matching number. If true, this is
known to be sharp for for which there exists a projective plane of order
. We show that the conjecture, if true, is also sharp for the smallest
previously open value, namely . For , we find the minimal
number of edges in an intersecting -partite hypergraph that has
covering number at least . We find that is achieved only by linear
hypergraphs for , but that this is not the case for . We
also improve the general lower bound on , showing that .
We show that a stronger form of Ryser's conjecture that was used to prove the
case fails for all . We also prove a fractional version of the
following stronger form of Ryser's conjecture: in an -partite hypergraph
there exists a set of size at most , contained either in one side of
the hypergraph or in an edge, whose removal reduces the matching number by 1.Comment: Minor revisions after referee feedbac
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