cp's OEIS Frontend

From Dan Eilers, Dec 23 2023: (Start)

A357271 provides the best known lower bounds for the maximum number of stable matchings of order n.

A357269 provides exact results. (End)

A069124(n) provides the lower bound for the maximum number of stable matchings with n men and n women. It is exact for n below 5.

This sequence arose from an attempt to reproduce A069124 by following the description in Thurber, 2002.

Define a matrix G for powers of 2, by G(1)=[1], and G(2^(k+1)) of size 2^(k+1) X 2^(k+1) by the block matrix [G(2^k), G(2^k)+2^k; G(2^k)+2^k, G(2^k)], where G(2^k)+2^k means add 2^k to each element of G(2^k) [see Thurber, p. 198 for more detail].

This sequence computes the number of pseudo-Latin stable matchings in the upper left n X n submatrix of G. Again, consult Thurber for definitions of what constitutes a stable matching in this situation.

Thurber's computation of these values are presented in A069124, but an attempt to reproduce that sequence gave the numbers of this sequence. The values here appear to be always increasing (unlike A069124). This is interesting because much of the Thurber paper is concerned with proving that the number of pseudo-Latin stable matchings is strictly increasing.

The first point of difference with A069124 occurs at n=7, but note that some later values do agree.

Subsequent verification by Dan Eilers in A069194 indicates that it is likely this sequence which is incorrect. - Sean A. Irvine, May 17 2025

In the Latin Stable Marriage Problem of order n, the sum of a man and woman's rankings of each other is n+1. This implies that the men's and women's ranking tables are Latin squares. As a subproblem of the Stable Marriage Problem, Latin instances provide lower bounds for the maximum number of stable matchings in the general problem, such as A005154 and A065982. For sizes 1 to 4, Latin instances provide exact bounds; they are conjectured to provide exact bounds for sizes a power of 2; they provide the best lower bounds known for sizes 6, 10, 12, and 24, of 48, 1000, 6472, and 126112960, respectively.

The next term, a(8), is conjectured to be 268, consistent with A005154. The minimum number of stable matchings for Latin instances of order n is n, and is realized for the cyclic group of order n. The average number of stable matchings is 7 for n=4 (cf. A351430 showing an average of about 1.5 for the general problem), and benefits from avoidance of mutual first choices and more generally the lack of overlap between the men's and women's preferred matchings. The Latin squares of A005154 and A065982 can be interpreted as multiplication tables of groups, n-th powers of the cyclic group C2 and n-th dihedral groups, respectively.

The sequence decreases from a(4)=10 to a(5)=9, in contrast to the corresponding sequence for the general problem, which Thurber showed to be strictly increasing. This has motivated the study of less restrictive subproblems, such as pseudo-Latin squares (A069124, A069156), Latin x Latin instances (A344664, A344665, A343697), instances where participants have different first choices (A343475, A343694, A343695), or instances with unspecified/tied/template rankings (A284458 with only first choices specified).

The sequence is empirically derived, originally based on reduced Latin squares (A000315). There are fewer instances to try using RC-equivalent Latin squares (A123234) instead of reduced Latin squares.