Maximal determinants and saturated D-optimal designs of orders 19 and 37

Abstract

A saturated D-optimal design is a {+1,-1} square matrix of given order with maximal determinant. We search for saturated D-optimal designs of orders 19 and 37, and find that known matrices due to Smith, Cohn, Orrick and Solomon are optimal. For order 19 we find all inequivalent saturated D-optimal designs with maximal determinant, 2^30 x 7^2 x 17, and confirm that the three known designs comprise a complete set. For order 37 we prove that the maximal determinant is 2^39 x 3^36, and find a sample of inequivalent saturated D-optimal designs. Our method is an extension of that used by Orrick to resolve the previously smallest unknown order of 15; and by Chadjipantelis, Kounias and Moyssiadis to resolve orders 17 and 21. The method is a two-step computation which first searches for candidate Gram matrices and then attempts to decompose them. Using a similar method, we also find the complete spectrum of determinant values for {+1,-1} matrices of order 13.