Solving isomorphism problems about 2-designs from disjoint difference families

Abstract

Recently, two new constructions of $(v,k,k-1)$ disjoint difference families in Galois rings were presented by Davis, Huczynska, and Mullen and Momihara. Both were motivated by a well-known construction of difference families from cyclotomy in finite fields by Wilson. It is obvious that the difference families in the Galois ring and the difference families in the finite field are not equivalent. A related question which is in general harder to answer is whether the associated designs are isomorphic or not. In our case, this problem was raised by Davis, Huczynska and Mullen. In this paper we show that the $2$-$(v,k,k-1)$ designs arising from the difference families in Galois rings and those arising from the difference families in finite fields are nonisomorphic by comparing their block intersection numbers.