Pair Covering Designs with Block Size 5 with Higher Index -The case of \(v\) even

lliya Bluskov1, Malcolm Greig2
1 Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, B.C., Canada, V2N 429.
2Greig Consulting, 317-130 East 11th St., North Vancouver, B.C., Canada V7L 4R3.

Abstract

A \((v,k,\lambda)\) covering design is a set of \(b\) blocks of size \(k\) such that each pair of points occurs in at least \(\lambda\) blocks, and the covering number \(C(v, k, \lambda)\) is the minimum value of \(b\) in any \((v, k, \lambda)\) covering design. For \(k = 5\) and \(v\) even, there are 24 open cases with \(2 \leq \lambda \leq 21\), each of which is the start of an open series for \(\lambda,\lambda + 20, \lambda + 40, \ldots\). In this article, we solve 22 of these cases with \(\lambda \leq 21\), leaving open \((v, 5, \lambda)=(44, 5, 13)\) and \((44, 5, 17)\) (and the series initiated for the former).