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Block-Transitive 3-Designs with Block Size At Most 6

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Abstract

In this paper we consider block-transitive automorphism groups of a 3-design with small block size. Let G be a block-transitive automorphism group of a nontrivial 3-\((v,k,\lambda )\) design \({\mathcal {D}}\) with \(k\le 6\). Then one of the following occurs:

  1. (i)

    if G is point-primitive then G is of affine or almost simple type;

  2. (ii)

    if G is point-imprimitive then G has rank 3 or 4, and \({\mathcal {D}}\) is a 3-\((16,6,\lambda )\) design with

    $$\begin{aligned} \lambda \in \{4, 8, 12, 16, 24, 28, 32, 48, 56, 64, 80, 84, 96, 112, 128, 140, 160\}. \end{aligned}$$

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to express deepest gratitude to the anonymous referees for their careful reading and valuable comments.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 11801174 and 11961026).

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Correspondence to Xiaoqin Zhan.

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Zhan, X., Pang, X. & Wang, Y. Block-Transitive 3-Designs with Block Size At Most 6. Graphs and Combinatorics 38, 145 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00373-022-02544-5

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