Lower bounds on maximal determinants of binary matrices via the probabilistic method

Abstract

Let $D(n)$ be the maximal determinant for $n\times n$ $\{\pm 1\}$-matrices, and $\mathcal{R}(n)=D(n)/n^{n/2}$ be the ratio of $D(n)$ to the Hadamard upper bound. We give several new lower bounds on $\mathcal{R}(n)$ in terms of $d$, where $n=h+d$, $h$ is the order of a Hadamard matrix, and $h$ is maximal subject to $h\le n$. A relatively simple bound is \[{\mathcal R}(n) \ge \left(\frac{2}{πe}\right)^{d/2} \left(1 - d^2\left(\fracπ{2h}\right)^{1/2}\right) \;\text{ for all }\; n \ge 1.\] An asymptotically sharper bound is \[{\mathcal R}(n) \ge \left(\frac{2}{πe}\right)^{d/2} \exp\left(d\left(\fracπ{2h}\right)^{1/2} + \; O\left(\frac{d^{5/3}}{h^{2/3}}\right)\right).\] We also show that \[{\mathcal R}(n) \ge \left(\frac{2}{πe}\right)^{d/2}\] if $n\ge n_0$ and $n_0$ is sufficiently large, the threshold $n_0$ being independent of $d$, or for all $n\ge 1$ if $0\le d\le 3$ (which would follow from the Hadamard conjecture). The proofs depend on the probabilistic method, and generalise previous results that were restricted to the cases $d=0$ and $d=1$.

37 pages, 2 tables, 59 references. Added some references in v2, fixed typos in v3 and v4, added footnote 2 on page 13 re proof of Lemma 12 in v5, revised footnote 2 in v6

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