Automorphisms of higher‐dimensional Hadamard matrices

Abstract This article derives from first principles a definition of equivalence for higher‐dimensional Hadamard matrices and thereby a definition of the automorphism group for higher‐dimensional Hadamard matrices. Our procedure is quite general and could be applied to other kinds of designs for which there are no established definitions for equivalence or automorphism. Given a two‐dimensional Hadamard matrix H of order ν, there is a Product Construction which gives an order ν proper n‐dimensional Hadamard matrix P(n)(H). We apply our ideas to the matrices P(n)(H). We prove that there is a constant c > 1 such that any Hadamard matrix H of order ν > 2 gives rise via the Product Construction to cν inequivalent proper three‐dimensional Hadamard matrices of order ν. This corrects an erroneous assertion made in the literature that ”P(n)(H) is equivalent to “P(n)(H′) whenever H is equivalent to H′.” We also show how the automorphism group of P(n)(H) depends on the structure of the automorphism group of H. As an application of the above ideas, we determine the automorphism group of P(n)(Hk) when Hk is a Sylvester Hadamard matrix of order 2k. For ν = 4, we exhibit three distinct families of inequivalent Product Construction matrices P(n)(H) where H is equivalent to H2. These matrices each have large but non‐isomorphic automorphism groups. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 16: 507–544, 2008