Asymmetric Binary Covering Codes

An asymmetric binary covering code of length n and radius R is a subset of the n-cube Q_n such that every vector xQ_n can be obtained from some vector c by changing at most R 1's of c to 0's, where R is as small as possible. K⁺(n,R) is defined as the smallest size of such a code. We show K⁺(n,R)Θ(2ⁿ/n^R) for constant R, using an asymmetric sphere-covering bound and probabilistic methods. We show K⁺(n,n− )= +1 for constant coradius iff n ( +1)/2. These two results are extended to near-constant R and , respectively. Various bounds on K⁺ are given in terms of the total number of 0's or 1's in a minimal code. The dimension of a minimal asymmetric linear binary code (n,R]⁺-code) is determined to be min{0,n−R}. We conclude by discussing open problems and techniques to compute explicit values for K⁺, giving a table of best-known bounds.