The Structure of 1-Generator Quasi-Twisted Codes and New Linear Codes

One of the most important problems of coding theory is to construct codes with best possible minimum distances. Recently, quasi-cyclic (QC) codes have been proven to contain many such codes. In this paper, we consider quasi-twisted (QT) codes, which are generalizations of QC codes, and their structural properties and obtain new codes which improve minimum distances of best known linear codes over the finite fields GF(3) and GF(5). Moreover, we give a BCH-type bound on minimum distance for QT codes and give a sufficient condition for a QT code to be equivalent to a QC code.     

A generalization of quasi-twisted codes: Multi-twisted codes

Cyclic codes and their various generalizations, such as quasi-twisted (QT) codes, have a special place in algebraic coding theory. Among other things, many of the best-known or optimal codes have been obtained from these classes. In this work we introduce a new generalization of QT codes that we call multi-twisted (MT) codes and study some of their basic properties. Presenting several methods of constructing codes in this class and obtaining bounds on the minimum distances, we show that there exist codes with good parameters in this class that cannot be obtained as QT or constacyclic codes. This suggests that considering this larger class in computer searches is promising for constructing codes with better parameters than currently best-known linear codes. Working with this new class of codes motivated us to consider a problem about binomials over finite fields and to discover a result that is interesting in its own right.     

Constructive spherical codes near the Shannon bound

Shannon gave a lower bound in 1959 on the binary rate of spherical codes of given minimum Euclidean distance ρ. Using nonconstructive codes over a finite alphabet, we give a lower bound that is weaker but very close for small values of ρ. The construction is based on the Yaglom map combined with some finite sphere packings obtained from nonconstructive codes for the Euclidean metric. Concatenating geometric codes meeting the TVZ bound with a Lee metric BCH code over GF(p), we obtain spherical codes that are polynomial time constructible. Their parameters outperform those obtained by Lachaud and Stern (IEEE Trans Inf Theory 40(4):1140–1146, 1994). At very high rate they are above 98% of the Shannon bound.     

On quasi-twisted codes over finite fields

In coding theory, quasi-twisted (QT) codes form an important class of codes which has been extensively studied. We decompose a QT code to a direct sum of component codes – linear codes over rings. Furthermore, given the decomposition of a QT code, we can describe the decomposition of its dual code. We also use the generalized discrete Fourier transform to give the inverse formula for both the nonrepeated-root and repeated-root cases. Then we produce a formula which can be used to construct a QT code given the component codes.     

On self-dual negacirculant codes of index two and four

We study the asymptotic performance of quasi-twisted codes viewed as modules in the ring \(R=\mathbb {F}_q[x]/\langle x^n+1\rangle , \) when they are self-dual and of length 2n or 4n. In particular, in order for the decomposition to be amenable to analysis, we study factorizations of \(x^n+1\) over \(\mathbb {F}_q, \) with n twice an odd prime, containing only three irreducible factors, all self-reciprocal. We give arithmetic conditions bearing on n and q for this to happen. Given a fixed q,  we show these conditions are met for infinitely many n’s, provided a refinement of Artin primitive root conjecture holds. This number theory conjecture is known to hold under generalized Riemann hypothesis (GRH). We derive a modified Varshamov–Gilbert bound on the relative distance of the codes considered, building on exact enumeration results for given n and q.     

Evaluation of the Hamming weights of a class of linear codes based on Gauss sums

Linear codes with a few weights have been widely investigated in recent years. In this paper, we mainly use Gauss sums to represent the Hamming weights of a class of q-ary linear codes under some certain conditions, where q is a power of a prime. The lower bound of its minimum Hamming distance is obtained. In some special cases, we evaluate the weight distributions of the linear codes by semi-primitive Gauss sums and obtain some one-weight, two-weight linear codes. It is quite interesting that we find new optimal codes achieving some bounds on linear codes. The linear codes in this paper can be used in secret sharing schemes, authentication codes and data storage systems.     

Artin–Schreier curves and weights of two-dimensional cyclic codes

Let be the finite field with q elements of characteristic p, be the extension of degree m>1 and f(x) be a polynomial over . The maximum number of affine -rational points that a curve of the form y^q−y=f(x) can have is q^m+1. We determine a necessary and sufficient condition for such a curve to achieve this maximum number. Then we study the weights of two-dimensional (2-D) cyclic codes. For this, we give a trace representation of the codes starting with the zeros of the dual 2-D cyclic code. This leads to a relation between the weights of codewords and a family of Artin–Schreier curves. We give a lower bound on the minimum distance for a large class of 2-D cyclic codes. Then we look at some special classes that are not covered by our main result and obtain similar minimum distance bounds.     

Extremal Ternary Self-Dual Codes Constructed from Negacirculant Matrices

In this paper, a construction of ternary self-dual codes based on negacirculant matrices is given. As an application, we construct new extremal ternary self-dual codes of lengths 32, 40, 44, 52 and 56. Our approach regenerates all the known extremal self-dual codes of lengths 36, 48, 52 and 64. New extremal ternary quasi-twisted self-dual codes are also constructed. Supported by an NSERC discovery grant and a RTI grant. Supported by an NSERC discovery grant and a RTI grant. A summer student Chinook Scholarship is greatly appreciated.     

Improved Bounds for Ternary Linear Codes of Dimension 8 Using Tabu Search

In this paper, new codes of dimension 8 are presented which give improved bounds on the maximum possible minimum distance of ternary linear codes. These codes belong to the class of quasi-twisted (QT) codes, and have been constructed using a stochastic optimization algorithm, tabu search. Twenty three codes are given which improve or establish the bounds for ternary codes. In addition, a table of upper and lower bounds for d ₃(n, 8) is presented for n 200.     

Directed graph representation of half-rate additive codes over GF(4)

We show that (n, 2 ⁿ ) additive codes over GF(4) can be represented as directed graphs. This generalizes earlier results on self-dual additive codes over GF(4), which correspond to undirected graphs. Graph representation reduces the complexity of code classification, and enables us to classify additive (n, 2 ⁿ ) codes over GF(4) of length up to 7. From this we also derive classifications of isodual and formally self-dual codes. We introduce new constructions of circulant and bordered circulant directed graph codes, and show that these codes will always be isodual. A computer search of all such codes of length up to 26 reveals that these constructions produce many codes of high minimum distance. In particular, we find new near-extremal formally self-dual codes of length 11 and 13, and isodual codes of length 24, 25, and 26 with better minimum distance than the best known self-dual codes.     

A New Upper Bound for the Dimension of Trace Codes

We shall derive a new non-trivial upper bound for the dimensionof trace codes connected to algebraic-geometric codes. Furthermore,we shall deduce their true dimension if certain conditions aresatisfied.     

Optical orthogonal codes obtained from conics on finite projective planes

Optical orthogonal codes can be applied to fiber optical code division multiple access (CDMA) communications. In this paper, we show that optical orthogonal codes with auto- and cross-correlations at most 2 can be obtained from conics on a finite projective plane. In addition, the obtained codes asymptotically attain the upper bound on the number of codewords when the order q of the base field is large enough.     

Linear codes with few weights from weakly regular plateaued functions

Linear codes with few nonzero weights have wide applications in secret sharing, authentication codes, association schemes and strongly regular graphs. Recently, Wu et al. (2020) obtained some few-weighted linear codes by employing bent functions. In this paper, inspired by Wu et al. and some pioneers' ideas, we use a kind of functions, namely, general weakly regular plateaued functions, to define the defining sets of linear codes. Then, by utilizing some cyclotomic techniques, we construct some linear codes with few weights and obtain their weight distributions. Notably, some of the obtained codes are almost optimal with respect to the Griesmer bound. Finally, we observe that our newly constructed codes are minimal for almost all cases.     

Bursts in m-metric array codes

Fire [P. Fire, A class of multiple-error-correcting binary codes for non-independent errors, Sylvania Reports RSL-E-2, Sylvania Reconnaissance Systems, Mountain View, California, 1959] introduced the concept of bursts for classical codes where codes are subsets/subspaces of the space , the space of all n-tuples with entries from a finite field F_q. In this paper, we introduce the notion of bursts for m-metric array codes where m-metric array codes are subsets/subspaces of the space Mat_m×s(F_q), the linear space of all m × s matrices with entries from a finite field F_q, endowed with a non-Hamming metric. We also obtain some bounds (analogous to Fire’s bound [P. Fire, A class of multiple-error-correcting binary codes for non-independent errors, Sylvania Reports RSL-E-2, Sylvania Reconnaissance Systems, Mountain View, California, 1959], Rieger’s bound [S.H. Reiger, Codes for the correction of clustered errors, IRE-Trans., IT-6 (1960), 16-21] etc. in classical codes) on the parameters of m-metric array codes for the detection and correction of burst errors.     

Embeddings of minimal non-abelian p-groups

By a quasi-permutation matrix we mean a square matrix over the complex field C with non-negative integral trace. For a given finite group G, let p(G) denote the minimal degree of a faithful representation of G by permutation matrices, and let c(G) denote the minimal degree of a faithful representation of G by quasi-permutation matrices. See [4]. It is easy to see that c(G) is a lower bound for p(G). Behravesh [H. Behravesh, The minimal degree of a faithful quasi-permutation representation of an abelian group, Glasg. Math. J. 39 (1) (1997) 51-57] determined c(G) for every finite abelian group G and also [H. Behravesh, Quasi-permutation representations of p-groups of class 2, J. Lond. Math. Soc. (2) 55 (2) (1997) 251-260] gave the algorithm of c(G) for each finite group G. In this paper, we first improve this algorithm and then determine c(G) and p(G) for an arbitrary minimal non-abelian p-group G.     

Flat tori, lattices and bounds for commutative group codes

We show that commutative group spherical codes in R ⁿ , as introduced by D. Slepian, are directly related to flat tori and quotients of lattices. As consequence of this view, we derive new results on the geometry of these codes and an upper bound for their cardinality in terms of minimum distance and the maximum center density of lattices and general spherical packings in the half dimension of the code. This bound is tight in the sense it can be arbitrarily approached in any dimension. Examples of this approach and a comparison of this bound with Union and Rankin bounds for general spherical codes is also presented.