Designs on vector spaces constructed using quadratic forms

1572-9168

Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000

Mathematics

Abstract Let N be the set of nonnegative integers, let λ, t, v be in N and let K be a subset of N, let V be a v-dimensional vector space over the finite field GF(q), and let W Kbe the set of subspaces of V whose dimensions belong to K. A t-[v, K, λ; q]-design on V is a mapping ℱ: W K→ N such that for every t-dimensional subspace, T, of V, we have $$\sum _{T \subseteq B}^{B \in WK} $$ ℱ (B)=λ. We construct t-[v, {t, t+1}, λ; q-designs on the vector space GF(q v) over GF(q) for t≥2, v odd, and q t(q−1)2λ equal to the number of nondegenerate quadratic forms in t+1 variables over GF(q). Moreover, the vast majority of blocks of these designs have dimension t+1. We also construct nontrivial 2-[v, k, λ; q]-designs for v odd and 3≤k≤v−3 and 3-[v, 4, q 6+q 5+q 4; q]-designs for v even. The distribution of subspaces in the designs is determined by the distribution of the pairs (Q, a) where Q is a nondegenerate quadratic form in k variables with coefficients in GF(q) and a is a vector with elements in GF(q v) such that Q(a)=0.

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