The asymptotic existence of BIBDs having a nesting

TL;DR

This paper investigates the conditions under which BIBDs can be nested into packings, establishes asymptotic existence results for large parameters, and confirms a conjecture related to disjoint block selection in cyclic BIBDs.

Contribution

It provides new asymptotic existence results for nested BIBDs and proves a conjecture on disjoint block selection in cyclic BIBDs for all relevant parameters.

Findings

Nested BIBDs exist asymptotically for large v when k ≥ 2λ+2.

Existence of perfect nesting BIBDs for large v with v ≡ 1 mod 2k when k=2λ+1.

Confirmation of a conjecture on selecting disjoint blocks in cyclic BIBDs for k ≥ λ+2.

Abstract

A $(v,k,\lambda)$-BIBD $(X,\mathcal B)$ can be nested if there is a mapping $\phi:\mathcal B\rightarrow X$ such that $(X,\{B\cup\{\phi(B)\}\mid B\in\mathcal B\})$ is a $(v,k+1,\lambda+1)$-packing. A $(v,k,\lambda)$-BIBD has a (perfect) nesting if and only if its incidence graph has a harmonious (exact) coloring with $v$ colors. This paper shows that given any positive integers $k$ and $\lambda$, if $k\geq 2\lambda+2$, then for any sufficiently large $v$, every $(v,k,\lambda)$-BIBD can be nested into a $(v,k+1,\lambda+1)$-packing; and if $k=2\lambda+1$, then for any sufficiently large $v$ satisfying $v \equiv 1 \pmod {2k}$, there exists a $(v,k,\lambda)$-BIBD having a perfect nesting. Banff difference families (BDF), as a special kind of difference families (DF), can be used to generate nested designs. This paper shows that if $G$ is a finite abelian group with a large size whose number of $2$-order elements is no more than a given constant, and $k\geq 2\lambda+2$, then a $(G,k,\lambda)$-BDF can be obtained by taking any $(G,k,\lambda)$-DF and then replacing each of its base blocks by a suitable translation. This is a Nov\'{a}k-like theorem. Nov\'{a}k conjectured in 1974 that for any cyclic Steiner triple system of order $v$, it is always possible to choose one block from each block orbit so that the chosen blocks are pairwise disjoint. Nov\'{a}k's conjecture was generalized to any cyclic $(v,k,\lambda)$-BIBDs by Feng, Horsley and Wang in 2021, who conjectured that given any positive integers $k$ and $\lambda$ such that $k\geq \lambda+1$, there exists an integer $v_0$ such that, for any cyclic $(v,k,\lambda)$-BIBD with $v\geq v_0$, it is always possible to choose one block from each block orbit so that the chosen blocks are pairwise disjoint. This paper confirms this conjecture for every $k\geq \lambda+2$.