On the existence spectrum for sharply transitive [formula omitted]-designs, [formula omitted] a [formula omitted]-matching

Abstract

In this paper we consider decompositions of the complete graph Kv into matchings of uniform cardinality k. They can only exist when k is an admissible value, that is a divisor of v(v−1)/2 with 1≤k≤v/2. The decompositions are required to admit an automorphism group Γ acting sharply transitively on the set of vertices. Here Γ is assumed to be either non-cyclic abelian or dihedral and we obtain necessary conditions for the existence of the decomposition when k is an admissible value with 1<k<v/2. Differently from the case where Γ is a cyclic group, these conditions do exclude existence in specific cases. On the other hand we produce several constructions for a wide range of admissible values, in particular for every admissible value of k when v is odd and Γ is an arbitrary group of odd order possessing a subgroup of order gcd(k,v).