General lower bounds on maximal determinants of binary matrices

Abstract: We give general lower bounds on the maximal determinant of n by n {+1,-1}-matrices, both with and without the assumption of the Hadamard conjecture. Our bounds improve on earlier results of de Launey and Levin (2010) and, for certain congruence classes of n mod 4, those of Koukouvinos, Mitrouli and Seberry (2000). In an Appendix we give a new proof, using Jacobi's determinant identity, of a result of Sz\"oll\H{o}si (2010) on minors of Hadamard matrices.