Latin Squares and SDRs

Presented By:
Madeeha Fatima

Content

Latin Squares
Systems of Distinct Representatives
Definition
Halls Marriage Theorem

Halls Condition

How many Latin Squares

Quasigroups
Conclusion

Latin Square
Definition: A Latin square of order n is an n n array/matrix taken from an
arbitrary set of n elements with property that each entry occurring exactly once
in each row and exactly once in each column.
Example: Latin Square of order 3.
A

B C

A B

C A

Question: How many different Latin Square exist for a specific order.
An Interpretation: Given a class of n boys and n girls, arrange a sequence of n
dances so that each boy and girl dance together exactly once. (The (i,j) entry of
the Latin Square gives the number of dances at which the i th boy and jth girl
dance together?

System of Distinct Representatives(SDR)

Problem 1: Suppose that the student clubs at a college each send a
representative to the student government from among the members of the club.
No person may represent more than one club; is this possible?
Example:
1. A1={a,b},A2={a,b},A3={a,b}.
How many representatives?

2. A1={a,b},A2={a,b},A3={a,b},A4={b,c,d,e}.
How many representatives?

of Distinct Representatives(SDR)
System

Definition: Let A1, A2,..,An be sets. A SDR for these sets is an n-tuple (x 1,
..xn) of elements with properties
a)

xiAi for i= 1,.,n (i.e. representatives )

b)

xi xj for i j (i.e. distinct)

For any set J {1,,n} of indices we define
A(J)=

Halls Condition:
for all J {1,,n}
This answers our problem1.

of Distinct Representatives(SDR)
System

Halls Marriage Theorem: The family of finite sets (A1, A2,..,An ) has a system of
distinct representatives if and only if the following condition holds:
for all J {1,,n}
Halls theorem Variant: Suppose that (A1, A2,..,An ) are sets satisfying (HC) and
suppose that for i=1,....,n. Then the number of different SDRs for the family is atleast
Theorem(6.2.4): Let (A1, A2,..,An ) be a family of subsets of {1,,n} and let r be a
positive integer such that
a) = for i=1,....,n.
b) Each element of {1,....,n} is contained in exactly r of the sets A1, A2,..,An , Then
the family (A1, A2,..,An ) satisfies HC, and so has an SDR.
Corollary: the family of sets has at least r SDRs.

How
many Latin Squares?
We want to construct Latin squares row by row, and so we want to be sure that if we
have fewer than n rows, there are many ways to add another row.
We define a knLatin rectangle, for k, to be a kn array with entries from {1,,n} with
property that each entry occurs exactly one in each row and at most once in each
column.
Proposition: Given kn Latin rectangle with k < n, there are at least (n-k) ways to add a
row to form (k+1)n rectangle.
Proof: the elements of new row must all be distinct, each must not among those
already used in column. So let Ai be the set of entries not occurring in the ith column of
the rectangle, and we have
(x1,.xn) is a possible (k+1)st row for the rectangle if and only if it is a SDR for the
family (A1, A2,..,An ) .
Theorem(6.3.2): The number of Latin square of order n is at least
7

Quasigroups:

Another way to looking at Latin Squares.

Let G= {g1,gn}. ifA =(aij) is any nn matrix with entries from set {1,,n},we
can define a binary operation on G by the rule

gi gj = gk

if and only if aij=k

A binary structure is called a quasigroup if the following axiom hold:

a) For all gj , gk G, there is a unique gi G with gigj = gk ;
b) For all gi , gk G, there is a unique gj G with gigj = gk ;
Proposition: A binary structure G is a quasigroup if and only if the
corresponding matrix A is a Latin Square.
1 2
3
4
For example:
1 2
2 1

=
1 2
3
2 3
1
3 1

5
2 1
6
3 4
1

6
4
5
5
2

3
6
8

Reference
Cameron, P.J.: Combinatorics (Topics, Techniques, Algorithms),
Cambridge,1994