Colouring 4-cycle systems with equitably coloured blocks

Abstract

AbstractA colouring of a 4-cycle system (V,B) is a surjective mapping φ:V→Γ. The elements of Γ are colours and, for each i∈Γ, the set Ci=φ−1(i) is a colour class. If |Γ|=m, we have an m-colouring of (V,B). For every B∈B, let φ(B)={φ(x)|x∈B}. We say that a block B is equitably coloured if either |φ(B)∩Ci|=0 or |φ(B)∩Ci|=2 for every i∈Γ. Let F(n) be the set of integers m such that there exists an m-coloured 4-cycle system of order n with every block equitably coloured. We prove that: •minF(n)=3 for every n≡1(mod8), n⩾17, F(9)=∅,•{m|3⩽m⩽n+3116}⊆F(n), n≡1(mod16), n⩾17,•{m|3⩽m⩽n+2316}⊆F(n), n≡9(mod16), n⩾25,•for every sufficiently large n≡1(mod8), there is an integer m̄ such that maxF(n)⩽m̄. Moreover we show that maxF(n)=m̄ for infinite values of n