Density threshold conjecture for partial Latin squares in random Latin squares

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For a non-empty partial Latin square PP, define its density by

m(P):=min⁡{∣RP′∣+∣CP′∣+∣SP′∣−∣P′∣∣P′∣:∅≠P′⊆P}.m(P):=\min\left\{\frac{|\mathcal{R}_{P'}|+|\mathcal{C}_{P'}|+|\mathcal{S}_{P'}|-|P'|}{|P'|}:\varnothing\ne P'\subseteq P\right\}.

Let L\mathbf{L} be a random Latin square of order nn. The density threshold conjecture. As n→∞n\to\infty,

{P(L contains an isotopic copy of P)→0if m(P)<0,P(L contains an isotopic copy of P)→1if m(P)>0.\begin{cases} \mathop{\mathbb{P}}\nolimits(\mathbf{L}\text{ contains an isotopic copy of }P)\to 0 & \text{if }m(P)<0,\\ \mathop{\mathbb{P}}\nolimits(\mathbf{L}\text{ contains an isotopic copy of }P)\to 1 & \text{if }m(P)>0. \end{cases}

When m(P)=0m(P)=0, the source additionally expects the number of copies of PP in L\mathbf{L} to have a Poisson distribution, mentioning 3×33\times3 subsquares as an example. The threshold dichotomy itself remains conjectural in the supplied text.

References

Primary source

Jack Allsop and Patrick Morris, “Universal probability bounds for partial Latin squares”, arXiv:2606.18174 (2026).

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