Existence of HSOLSSOMs with Types \(h^n\) and \(1^nu^1\)

R.J.R. Abel1, F.E. Bennett2, H. Zhang3, L. Zhu4
1School of Mathematics University of New South Wales Kensington, NSW 2033, Australia
2Department of Mathematics Mount Saint Vincent University Halifax, Nova Scotia B3M 2J6, Canada
3Computer Science Department The University of Iowa Towa City, IA 52242, U.S. A.
4Department of Mathematics Suzhou University Suzhou 215006, China

Abstract

The existence of holey self-orthogonal Latin squares with symmetric orthogonal mates (HSOLSSOMs) of types \(h^n\) and \(1^{n}u^1\) is investigated. For type \(h^n\), new pairs of \((h, n)\) are constructed so that the possible exceptions of \((h, n)\) for the existence of such HSOLSSOMs are reduced to \(11\) in number. Two necessary conditions for the existence of HSOLSSOMs of type \(1^{n}u^1\) are (1) \(n \geq 3u + 1\) and (2) \(n\) must be even and \(u\) odd. Such an HSOLSSOM gives rise to an incomplete SOLSSOM. For \(3 \leq u \leq 15\), the necessary conditions are shown to be sufficient with seven possible exceptions. It is also proved that such an HSOLSSOM exists whenever even \(n \geq 5u + 9\) and odd \(u \leq 9\).