Number Theory

An orthogonal array with parameters \((N,n,q,t)\) (\(OA(N,n,q,t)\) for short) is an \(N\times n\) matrix with entries from the alphabet \(\{1,2,...,q\}\) such that in any of its \(t\) columns, all possible row vectors of length \(t\) occur equally often. Rao showed the following lower bound on \(N\) for \(OA(N,n,q,2e)\):
\[ N\geq \sum_{k=0}^e \binom{n}{k}(q-1)^k, \]
and an orthogonal array is said to be complete or tight if it achieves equality in this bound. It is known by Delsarte (1973) that for complete orthogonal arrays \(OA(N,n,q,2e)\), the number of Hamming distances between distinct two rows is \(e\). One of the classical problems is to classify complete orthogonal arrays.

We call an orthogonal array \(OA(N,n,q,2e-1)\) extremal if the number of Hamming distances between distinct two rows is \(e\). In this talk, we review the classification problem of complete orthogonal arrays with our contribution to the case \(t=4\) and show how to extend it to extremal orthogonal arrays. Moreover, we give a result for extremal orthogonal arrays which is a counterpart of a result in block designs by Ionin and Shrikhande in 1993.

The class number one problem is one of the central subjects in algebraic number theory that turns back to the time of Gauss. This problem has led to the classical embedding problem which asks whether or not any number field $K$ can be embedded in a finite extension $L$ with class number one. Although Golod and Shafarevich gave a counterexample for the classical embedding problem, yet one may ask about the embedding in 'Polya fields', a special generalization of class number one number fields. The latter is the 'new embedding problem' investigated by Leriche in 2014. In this talk, I briefly review some well-known results in the literature on the embedding problems. Then, I will present the 'relativized' version of the new embedding problem studied in a joint work with Ali Rajaei.

In 2000, Shiu proved that there are infinitely many primes whose last digit is 1 such that the next prime also ends in a 1. However, it is an open problem to show that there are infinitely many primes ending in 1 such that the next prime ends in 3. In this talk, we'll instead consider the sequence of sums of two squares in increasing order. In particular, we'll show that there are infinitely many sums of two squares ending in 1 such that the next sum of two squares ends in 3. We'll show further that all patterns of length 3 occur infinitely often: for any modulus q, every sequence (a mod q, b mod q, c mod q) appears infinitely often among consecutive sums of two squares. We'll discuss some of the proof techniques, and explain why they fail for primes. Joint work with Noam Kimmel.

We present various results and conjectures regarding unlikely intersections of orbits for families of Drinfeld modules. Our questions are motivated by the groundbreaking result of Masser and Zannier (from 15 years ago) regarding torsion points in algebraic families of elliptic curves.

It is conjectured that there is no projective plane of order 12. Balanced splittable Hadamard matrices were introduced in 2018. In 2023, it was shown that a projective plane of order 12 is equivalent to a balanced multi-splittable Hadamard matrix of order 144. There will be an attempt to show the equivalence in a way that may require little background.