Bicoloring Steiner Triple Systems

Abstract

A Steiner triple system has a bicoloring with $m$ color classes if the points are partitioned into $m$ subsets and the three points in every block are contained in exactly two of the color classes. In this paper we give necessary conditions for the existence of a bicoloring with 3 color classes and give a multiplication theorem for Steiner triple systems with 3 color classes. We also examine bicolorings with more than 3 color classes.