Constructions for Hadamard matrices of Williamson type

Tlias S. Kotsireas1, Christos Koukouvinos2
1Wilfrid Laurier University, Department of Physics and Computer Science, 75 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5, Canada. Supported in part by a grant from NSERC
2Department of Mathematics, National Technica! University of Athens, Zografou 15773, Athens, Greece

Abstract

In this paper we examine the classical Williamson construction for Hadamard matrices, from the point of view of a striking analogy with isomorphisms of division algebras. By interpreting the 4 Williamson array as a matrix arising from the real quaternion division algebra, we construct Williamson arrays with 8 matrices, based on the real octonion division algebra. Using a Computational Algebra formalism we perform exhaustive searches for even-order 4-Williamson matrices up to 18 and odd- and even-order 8-Williamson matrices up to 9 and partial searches for even-order 4-Williamson matrices up to 22 and odd- and even-order 8-Williamson matrices for orders 10 — 13. Using Magma, we conduct searches for inequivalent Hadamard matrices within all the sets of matrices obtained by exhaustive and partial searches. In particular, we establish constructively ten new lower bounds for the number of inequivalent, Hadamard matrices of the consecutive orders 72, 76, 80, 84, 88, 92, 96, 100, 104 and 108.