Regular Steinhaus graphs of odd degree

Abstract

A Steinhaus matrix is a binary square matrix of size $n$ which is symmetric, with diagonal of zeros, and whose upper-triangular coefficients satisfy $a_{i,j}=a_{i-1,j-1}+a_{i-1,j}$ for all $2\leq i<j\leq n$. Steinhaus matrices are determined by their first row. A Steinhaus graph is a simple graph whose adjacency matrix is a Steinhaus matrix. We give a short new proof of a theorem, due to Dymacek, which states that even Steinhaus graphs, i.e. those with all vertex degrees even, have doubly-symmetric Steinhaus matrices. In 1979 Dymacek conjectured that the complete graph on two vertices $K_2$ is the only regular Steinhaus graph of odd degree. Using Dymacek's theorem, we prove that if $(a_{i,j})_{1\leq i,j\leq n}$ is a Steinhaus matrix associated with a regular Steinhaus graph of odd degree then its sub-matrix $(a_{i,j})_{2\leq i,j\leq n-1}$ is a multi-symmetric matrix, that is a doubly-symmetric matrix where each row of its upper-triangular part is a symmetric sequence. We prove that the multi-symmetric Steinhaus matrices of size $n$ whose Steinhaus graphs are regular modulo 4, i.e. where all vertex degrees are equal modulo 4, only depend on $\lceil \frac{n}{24}\rceil$ parameters for all even numbers $n$, and on $\lceil \frac{n}{30}\rceil$ parameters in the odd case. This result permits us to verify the Dymacek's conjecture up to 1500 vertices in the odd case.