Latin bitrades, dissections of equilateral triangles and abelian groups

TL;DR

This paper links spherical latin bitrades to equilateral triangle dissections and demonstrates their embedding into finite abelian groups, revealing new geometric and algebraic structures.

Contribution

It establishes a connection between latin bitrades, triangle dissections, and abelian groups, providing a novel geometric interpretation and embedding method.

Findings

Spherical latin bitrades can be interpreted as equilateral triangle dissections.

Methods for dissections enable embedding into finite abelian groups.

Unique solutions to associated linear equations underpin the geometric interpretation.

Abstract

Let $T = (T^{\textstyle \ast}, T^{\scriptscriptstyle \triangle})$ be a spherical latin bitrade. With each $a=(a_1,a_2,a_3)\in T^{\textstyle \ast}$ associate a set of linear equations $\eq(T,a)$ of the form $b_1+b_2=b_3$, where $b = (b_1,b_2,b_3)$ runs through $T^{\textstyle \ast} \setminus \{a\}$. Assume $a_1 = 0 = a_2$ and $a_3 = 1$. Then $\eq(T,a)$ has in rational numbers a unique solution $b_i = \bar b_i$. Suppose that $\bar b_i \ne \bar c_i$ for all $b,c \in T^{\textstyle \ast}$ such that $b_i \ne c_i$ and $i \in \{1,2,3\}$. We prove that then $T^{\scriptscriptstyle \triangle}$ can be interpreted as a dissection of an equilateral triangle. We also consider group modifications of latin bitrades and show that the methods for generating the dissections can be used for a proof that $T^{\textstyle \ast}$ can be embedded into the operational table of a finite abelian group, for every spherical latin bitrade $T$.