In this paper, we obtain classification results for higher-dimensional analogues of classical association schemes called association schemes on triples (ASTs). We present an algorithm that enumerates all ASTs on a fixed number of vertices whose nontrivial relations are invariant under the action of some group. Applying this algorithm to three, four, and five vertices along with appropriate group actions yields the unique AST over three vertices, the unique symmetric ASTs over four or five vertices, the unique AST over four vertices with two nontrivial relations, and the unique nontrivial circulant AST over five vertices.
Association schemes on triples (ASTs) are ternary analogues of classical association schemes, whose relations and adjacency algebras are ternary instead of binary. We provide a survey of the current progress in the study of ASTs, highlighting open questions, suggesting research directions, and producing some related results. We review properties of the ternary adjacency algebras of ASTs, ASTs whose relations are invariant under some group action, and ASTs obtained from 2-designs and two-graphs. We also provide a notion of fusion and fission ASTs, using the AST obtained from the affine special …
In this paper we are interested in the following question: Given an arbitrary Steiner triple system $S$ on $m$ vertices and any 3-uniform hypertree $T$ on $n$ vertices, is it necessary that $S$ contains $T$ as a subgraph provided $m \geq (1+μ)n$? We show the answer is positive for a class of hypertrees and conjecture that the answer is always positive.
The neighborhood of a pair of vertices $u,v$ in a triple system is the set of vertices $w$ such that $uvw$ is an edge. A triple system $\HH$ is semi-bipartite if its vertex set contains a vertex subset $X$ such that every edge of $\HH$ intersects $X$ in exactly two points. It is easy to see that if $\HH$ is semi-bipartite, then the neighborhood of every pair of vertices in $\HH$ is an independent set. We show a partial converse of this statement by proving that almost all triple systems with vertex sets $[n]$ and independent neighborhoods are semi-bipartite. Our result can be viewed as an exte…
Hypertrees are linear hypergraphs where every two vertices are connected by a unique path. Elliott and Rödl conjectured that for any given $μ>0$, there exists $n_0$ such that the following holds. Every $n$-vertex Steiner triple system contains all hypertrees with at most $(1-μ)n$ vertices whenever $n\geq n_0$. We prove this conjecture.
We produce an edge-coloring of the complete 3-uniform hypergraph on n vertices with $e^{O(\sqrt {log log n})}$ colors such that the edges spanned by every set of five vertices receive at least three distinct colors. This answers the first open case of a question of Conlon-Fox-Lee-Sudakov [1] who asked whether such a coloring exists with $(log n)^{o(1)}$ colors.
Let STS(n) denote the number of Steiner triple systems on n vertices, and let F(n) denote the number of 1-factorizations of the complete graph on n vertices. We prove the following upper bound. STS(n) <= ((1 + o(1)) (n/e^2))^(n^2/6) F(n) <= ((1 + o(1)) (n/e^2))^(n^2/2) We conjecture that the bound is sharp. Our main tool is the entropy method.
Association Schemes and coherent configurations (and the related Bose-Mesner algebra and coherent algebras) are well known in combinatorics with many applications. In the 1990s, Mesner and Bhattacharya introduced a three-dimensional generalisation of association schemes which they called an association scheme on triples (AST) and constructed examples of several families of ASTs. Many of their examples used 2-transitive permutation groups: the non-trivial ternary relations of the ASTs were sets of ordered triples of pairwise distinct points of the underlying set left invariant by the group; and…
We present the tables of feasible parameters of primitive $3$-class $Q$-polynomial association schemes and $4$- and $5$-class $Q$-bipartite association schemes (on up to $2800$, $10000$, and $50000$ vertices, respectively), accompanied by a number of nonexistence results for such schemes obtained by analysing triple intersection numbers of putative open cases.
It is shown that linked systems of symmetric designs with $a_1^*=0$ and mutually unbiased bases (MUB) are triply regular association schemes. In this paper, we characterize triple regularity of linked systems of symmetric designs by its Krein number. And we prove that maximal MUB carries a quadruply regular association scheme and characterize the quadruple regularity of MUB by its parameter.
In 2013, van Dam, Martin and Muzychuk constructed a cometric $Q-$ antipodal $4-$class association scheme from a GQ of order $(t^2,t)$, $t$ odd, which have a hemisystem. In this paper we characterize this scheme by its Krein array. The techniques which are used involve the triple intersection numbers introduced by Coolsaet and Jurišić.
We show that the maximum number of triples on $n$~points, if no three triples span at most five points, is $(1\pm o(1))n^2/5$. More generally, let $f^{(r)}(n;k,s)$ be the maximum number of edges of an $r$-uniform hypergraph on $n$~vertices not containing a subgraph with $k$~vertices and $s$~edges. In 1973, Brown, Erdős and Sós conjectured that the limit $\lim_{n\to \infty}n^{-2}f^{(3)}(n;k,k-2)$ exists for all~$k$. They proved this for $k=4$, where the limit is $1/6$ and the extremal examples are Steiner triple systems. We prove the conjecture for $k=5$ and show that the limit is~$1/5$. The up…
We complete the classification of tight $4$-designs in Hamming association schemes $H(n,q)$, i.e., that of tight orthogonal arrays of strength $4$, which had been open since a result by Noda (1979). To do so, we construct an association scheme attached to a tight $4$-design in $H(n,q)$ and analyze its triple intersection numbers to conclude the non-existence in all open cases.
For any positive integer $m$, the complete graph on $2^{2m}(2^m+2)$ vertices is decomposed into $2^m+1$ commuting strongly regular graphs, which give rise to a symmetric association scheme of class $2^{m+2}-2$. Furthermore, the eigenmatrices of the symmetric association schemes are determined explicitly. As an application, the eigenmatrix of the commutative strongly regular decomposition obtained from the strongly regular graphs is derived.
In this paper we make a partial progress on the following conjecture: for every $μ>0$ and large enough $n$, every Steiner triple system $S$ on at least $(1+μ)n$ vertices contains every hypertree $T$ on $n$ vertices. We prove that the conjecture holds if $T$ is a perfect $d$-ary hypertree.
Every Hadamard matrix $H$ of order $n > 1$ induces a graph with $4n$ vertices, called the Hadamard graph $Γ(H)$ of $H$. Since $Γ(H)$ is a distance-regular graph with diameter $4$, it induces a $4$-class association scheme $(Ω, S)$ of order $4n$. In this article we deal with fission schemes of $(Ω, S)$ under certain conditions, and for such a fission scheme we estimate the number of isomorphism classes with the same intersection numbers as the fission scheme.
We prove that a tournament with $n$ vertices has more than $0.13n^2(1+o(1))$ edge-disjoint transitive triples. We also prove some results on the existence of large packings of $k$-vertex transitive tournaments in an $n$-vertex tournament. Our proofs combine probabilistic arguments and some powerful packing results due to Wilson and to Frankl and Rödl.
Delsarte-Goethals-Seidel showed that if $X$ is a spherical $t$-design with degree $s$ satisfying $t\geq 2s-2$, $X$ carries the structure of an association scheme. Also Bannai-Bannai showed that the same conclusion holds if $X$ is an antipodal spherical $t$-design with degree $s$ satisfying $t=2s-3$. As a generalization of these results, we prove that a union of spherical designs with a certain property carries the structure of a coherent configuration. We derive triple regularity of tight spherical $4,5,7$-designs, mutually unbiased bases, linked symmetric designs with certain parameters.
Fractional revival occurs between two vertices in a graph if a continuous-time quantum walk unitarily maps the characteristic vector of one vertex to a superposition of the characteristic vectors of the two vertices. This phenomenon is relevant in quantum information in particular for entanglement generation in spin networks. We study fractional revival in graphs whose adjacency matrices belong to the Bose-Mesner algebra of association schemes. A specific focus is a characterization of balanced fractional revival (which corresponds to maximal entanglement) in graphs that belong to the Hamming …
An edge-coloring of the complete graph $K_n$ we call $F$-caring if it leaves no $F$-subgraph of $K_n$ monochromatic and at the same time every subset of $|V(F)|$ vertices contains in it at least one completely multicolored version of $F$. For the first two meaningful cases, when $F=K_{1,3}$ and $F=P_4$ we determine for infinitely many $n$ the minimum number of colors needed for an $F$-caring edge-coloring of $K_n$. An explicit family of $2\lceil\log_2 n\rceil$ $3$-edge-colorings of $K_n$ so that every quadruple of its vertices contains a totally multicolored $P_4$ in at least one of them is al…
We show that a dense subset of a sufficiently large group multiplication table contains either a large part of the addition table of the integers modulo some $k$, or the entire multiplication table of a certain large abelian group, as a subgrid. As a consequence, we show that triples systems coming from a finite group contain configurations with $t$ triples spanning $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{t})$ vertices, which is the best possible up to the implied constant. We confirm that for all $t$ we can find a collection of $t$ triples spanning at most $t+3$ vertices, resolving the Brown--Erd\H os--Sós conjec…
A Berge-$K_4$ in a triple system is a configuration with four vertices $v_1,v_2,v_3,v_4$ and six distinct triples $\{e_{ij}: 1\le i< j \le 4\}$ such that $\{v_i,v_j\}\subset e_{ij}$ for every $1\le i<j\le 4$. We denote by $\cal{B}$ the set of Berge-$K_4$ configurations. A triple system is $\cal{B}$-free if it does not contain any member of $\cal{B}$. We prove that the maximum number of triples in a $\cal{B}$-free triple system on $n\ge 6$ points is obtained by the balanced complete $3$-partite triple system: all triples $\{abc: a\in A, b\in B, c\in C\}$ where $A,B,C$ is a partition of $n$ poin…
An (association) scheme is said to be Frobenius if it is the scheme of a Frobenius group. A scheme which has the same tensor of intersection numbers as some Frobenius scheme is said to be pseudofrobenius. We establish a necessary and sufficient condition for an imprimitive pseudofrobenius scheme to be Frobenius. We also prove strong necessary conditions for existence of an imprimitive pseudofrobenius scheme which is not Frobenius. As a byproduct, we obtain a sufficient condition for an imprimitive Frobenius group $G$ with abelian kernel to be determined up to isomorphism only by the character …
Let $(X,\mathcal{R})$ be a commutative association scheme and let $Γ=(X,R\cup R^\top)$ be a connected undirected graph where $R\in \mathcal{R}$. Godsil (resp., Brouwer) conjectured that the edge connectivity (resp., vertex connectivity) of $Γ$ is equal to its valency. In this paper, we prove that the deletion of the neighborhood of any vertex leaves behind at most one non-singleton component. Two vertices $a,b\in X$ are called "twins" in $Γ$ if they have identical neighborhoods: $Γ(a)=Γ(b)$. We characterize twins in polynomial association schemes and show that, in the absence of twins, the del…
In 1984, Fan gave a sufficient condition involving maximum degree of every pair of vertices at distance two for a graph to be Hamiltonian. Motivated by Fan's result, we say that an induced subgraph $H$ of a graph $G$ is $f$-heavy if for every pair of vertices $u,v\in V(H)$, $d_{H}(u,v)=2$ implies that $\max\{d(u),d(v)\}\geq n/2$. For a given graph $R$, $G$ is called $R$-$f$-heavy if every induced subgraph of $G$ isomorphic to $R$ is $f$-heavy. For a family $\mathcal{R}$ of graphs, $G$ is $\mathcal{R}$-$f$-\emph{heavy} if $G$ is $R$-$f$-heavy for every $R\in \mathcal{R}$. In this note we show t…
It is well-known that translation schemes on prime number of vertices are exactly the cyclotomic schemes. In this current paper, we show that there are no nonsymmetric primitive translation schemes on prime square vertices with at most four classes. On the other hand, we find new non-symmetric four- and five-class association schemes from cyclotomy as fission schemes of certain symmetric three-class schemes. Moreover, we provide an affirmative answer to the following question raised by Song \cite{song_2}: Are there any other two-class primitive schemes that admit symmetrizable fission schemes …
Let $X$ be $k$-regular graph on $v$ vertices and let $τ$ denote the least eigenvalue of its adjacency matrix $A(X)$. If $α(X)$ denotes the maximum size of an independent set in $X$, we have the following well known bound: \[ α(X) \le\frac{v}{1-\frac{k}τ}. \] It is less well known that if equality holds here and $S$ is a maximum independent set in $X$ with characteristic vector $x$, then the vector \[ x-\frac{|S|}{v}\one \] is an eigenvector for $A(X)$ with eigenvalue $τ$. In this paper we show how this can be used to characterise the maximal independent sets in certain classes of graphs. As a …
A {\em special four-cycle } $F$ in a triple system consists of four triples {\em inducing } a $C_4$. This means that $F$ has four special vertices $v_1,v_2,v_3,v_4$ and four triples in the form $w_iv_iv_{i+1}$ (indices are understood $\pmod 4$) where the $w_j$s are not necessarily distinct but disjoint from $\{v_1,v_2,v_3,v_4\}$. There are seven non-isomorphic special four-cycles, their family is denoted by $\cal{F}$. Our main result implies that the Turán number $\text{ex}(n,{\cal{F}})=Θ(n^{3/2})$. In fact, we prove more, $\text{ex}(n,\{F_1,F_2,F_3\})=Θ(n^{3/2})$, where the $F_i$-s are specif…
We introduce a new model of indeterminacy in graphs: instead of specifying all the edges of the graph, the input contains all triples of vertices that form a connected subgraph. In general, different (labelled) graphs may have the same set of connected triples, making unique reconstruction of the original graph from the triples impossible. We identify some families of graphs (including triangle-free graphs) for which all graphs have a different set of connected triples. We also give algorithms that reconstruct a graph from a set of triples, and for testing if this reconstruction is unique. Fin…
In this paper, we study the subconstituent algebras, also called as Terwilliger algebras, of association schemes that are obtained as the wreath product of one-class association schemes $K_n=H(1, n)$ for $n\ge 2$. We find that the $d$-class association scheme $K_{n_{1}}\wr K_{n_{2}} \wr ... \wr K_{n_{d}}$ formed by taking the wreath product of $K_{n_{i}}$ has the triple-regularity property. We determine the dimension of the Terwilliger algebra for the association scheme $K_{n_{1}}\wr K_{n_{2}}\wr ... \wr K_ {n_{d}}$. We give a description of the structure of the Terwilliger algebra for the wre…
We show that any two Hadamard graphs on the same number of vertices are quantum isomorphic. This follows from a more general recipe for showing quantum isomorphism of graphs arising from certain association schemes. The main result is built from three tools. A remarkable recent result of Mančinska and Roberson shows that graphs $G$ and $H$ are quantum isomorphic if and only if, for any planar graph $F$, the number of graph homomorphisms from $F$ to $G$ is equal to the number of graph homomorphisms from $F$ to $H$. A generalization of partition functions called "scaffolds" affords some basic re…
We consider continuous-time quantum walks on distance-regular graphs of small diameter. Using results about the existence of complex Hadamard matrices in association schemes, we determine which of these graphs have quantum walks that admit uniform mixing. First we apply a result due to Chan to show that the only strongly regular graphs that admit instantaneous uniform mixing are the Paley graph of order nine and certain graphs corresponding to regular symmetric Hadamard matrices with constant diagonal. Next we prove that if uniform mixing occurs on a bipartite graph X with n vertices, then n i…
A complete $k$-coloring of a graph $G=(V,E)$ is an assignment $φ:V\to\{1,\ldots,k\}$ of colors to the vertices such that no two vertices of the same color are adjacent, and the union of any two color classes contains at least one edge. Three extensively investigated graph invariants related to complete colorings are the minimum and maximum number of colors in a complete coloring (chromatic number $χ(G)$ and achromatic number $ψ(G)$, respectively), and the Grundy number $Γ(G)$ defined as the largest $k$ admitting a complete coloring $φ$ with exactly $k$ colors such that every vertex $v\in V$ of…
Let $n\geq k\geq 2$ be two integers and $S$ a subset of $\{0,1,\dots,k-1\}$. The graph $J_{S}(n,k)$ has as vertices the $k$-subsets of the $n$-set $[n]=\{1,\dots,n\}$ and two $k$-subsets $A$ and $B$ are adjacent if $|A\cap B|\in S$. In this paper, we use Godsil-McKay switching to prove that for $m\geq 0$, $k\geq \max(m+2,3)$ and $S = \{0, 1, ..., m\}$, the graphs $J_S(3k-2m-1,k)$ are not determined by spectrum and for $m\geq 2$, $n\geq 4m+2$ and $S = \{0,1,...,m\}$ the graphs $J_{S}(n,2m+1)$ are not determined by spectrum. We also report some computational searches for Godsil-McKay switching s…
Quadrance between two points A_1 = [x_1,y_1] and A_2 = [x_2,y_2] is the number Q (A_1, A_2) := (x_2 - x_1)^2 + (y_2 - y_1)^2. In this paper, we present some interesting results arise from this notation. In Section 1, we will study geometry over finite fields under quadrance notations. The main purpose of Section 1 is to answer the question, for which a_1,...,a_n, we have a polygon A_1...A_n such that Q(A_i,A_{i+1})=a_i for i = 1,...,n. In Section 2, using tools developed in Section 1, we define a family of association schemes over finite field space F_q x F_q where q is a prime power. These sc…
