Parity of transversals of Latin squares
Algebraic Combinatorics, Volume 3 (2020) no. 2, pp. 539-557.

We introduce a notion of parity for transversals, and use it to show that in Latin squares of order 2mod4, the number of transversals is a multiple of 4. We also demonstrate a number of relationships (mostly congruences modulo 4) involving E 1 ,,E n , where E i is the number of diagonals of a given Latin square that contain exactly i different symbols.

Let A(ij) denote the matrix obtained by deleting row i and column j from a parent matrix A. Define t ij to be the number of transversals in L(ij), for some fixed Latin square L. We show that t ab t cd mod2 for all a,b,c,d and L. Also, if L has odd order then the number of transversals of L equals t ab mod 2. We conjecture that t ac +t bc +t ad +t bd 0mod4 for all a,b,c,d.

In the course of our investigations we prove several results that could be of interest in other contexts. For example, we show that the number of perfect matchings in a k-regular bipartite graph on 2n vertices is divisible by 4 when n is odd and k0mod4. We also show that

perA(ac)+perA(bc)+perA(ad)+perA(bd)0mod4

for all a,b,c,d, when A is an integer matrix of odd order with all row and columns sums equal to k2mod4.

Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published online:
DOI: 10.5802/alco.103
Classification: 05B15, 15A15, 05C70
Keywords: parity, Latin square, transversal, permanent, Latin rectangle, perfect matching, permanental minor, bipartite graph

Best, Darcy 1; Wanless, Ian M. 1

1 School of Mathematics Monash University, Australia
License: CC-BY 4.0
Copyrights: The authors retain unrestricted copyrights and publishing rights
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Best, Darcy; Wanless, Ian M. Parity of transversals of Latin squares. Algebraic Combinatorics, Volume 3 (2020) no. 2, pp. 539-557. doi : 10.5802/alco.103. https://alco.centre-mersenne.org/articles/10.5802/alco.103/

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