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The Length of a Partial Transversal

Hung-Lin Fu1, Shyh-Chung Lin 1, Chin-Mei Fu 2
1Department of Applied Mathematics Nation Chiao Tung University Hsin Chu, Taiwan, R.O.C.
2Department of Mathematics Tankang University Tamsui, Taipei Hsein, Taiwan, R.O.C.

Abstract

A Latin square of order \(n\) is an \(n \times n\) array of cells containing one of the \(n\) elements in \(\{1,2,\ldots,n\}\) such that in each row and each column each element appears exactly once. A partial transversal \(P\) of a Latin square \(L\) is a set of \(n\) cells such that no two are in the same row and the same column. The number of distinct elements in \(P\) is referred to as the length of \(P\), denoted by \(|P|\), and the maximum length of a partial transversal in \(L\) is denoted by \(t(L)\). In this paper, we study the technique used by Shor which shows that \(t(L) \geq n – 5.53{(\ln)}^2\) and we improve the lower bound slightly by using a more accurate evaluation.