Optimality aspects of 3-concurrence most balanced designs

Takcuchi (1961,1963) established E-optimality of Group Divisible Designs (GDDs) with λ₂=λ₁+1. Much later, Cheng (1980) and Jacroux (1980,1983) demonstrated E-optimality property of the GDDs with n=2,λ₁=λ₂+1 or with m=2,λ₂=λ₁+2. The purpose of this paper is to provide a unified approach for identifying certain classes of designs as E-optimal. In the process, we come up with a complete characterization of all E-optimal designs attaining a specific bound for the smallest non-zero eigenvalue of the underlying C-matrices. This establishes E-optimality of a class of 3-concurrence most balanced designs with suitable intra- and inter-group balancing. We also discuss the MV-optimality aspect of such designs.