The existence conjecture for universal cycles of multisets

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Let [n]={1,…,n}[n]=\{1,\ldots,n\}, and let a Universal Cycle for tt-multisets of [n][n] be a cyclic sequence of (n+t−1t)\binom{n+t-1}{t} integers from [n][n] in which every tt-multiset of [n][n] appears exactly once consecutively. Universal-cycle existence conjecture. For tt large enough in terms of nn, Universal Cycles for tt-multisets of [n][n] exist if and only if

n∣(n+t−1t).n\mid\binom{n+t-1}{t}.

The divisibility condition is necessary because each symbol must occur equally often in the cyclic sequence. The paper proves the conjecture completely for t∈{2,3}t\in\{2,3\} and partially for t∈{4,6}t\in\{4,6\}, while the general case remains open.

References

Primary source

Glenn Hurlbert, Tobias Johnson and Joshua Zahl, “On Universal Cycles for Multisets”, arXiv:math/0701488 (2008).

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