Generalizing the Bierbrauer-Friedman bound for orthogonal arrays

We characterize mixed-level orthogonal arrays it terms of algebraic designs in a special multigraph. We prove a mixed-level analog of the Bierbrauer--Friedman (BF) bound for pure-level orthogonal arrays and show that arrays attaining it are radius-$1$ completely regular codes (equivalently, intriguing sets, equitable $2$-partitions, perfect $2$-colorings) in the corresponding multigraph. For the case when the numbers of levels are powers of the same prime number, we characterize, in terms of multispreads, additive mixed-level orthogonal arrays attaining the BF bound. For pure-level orthogonal arrays, we consider versions of the BF bound obtained by replacing the Hamming graph by its polynomial generalization and show that in some cases this gives a new bound. Keywords: orthogonal array, algebraic $t$-design, mixed orthogonal array, completely-regular code, equitable partition, intriguing set, Hamming graph, Bierbrauer-Friedman bound, additive code.