Two New Infinite Families of 3-Designs from Kerdock Codes over Z4

In this paper we show that the support of the codewords of each type in the Kerdock code of length 2^m over Z₄ form 3-designs for any odd integer . In particular, twonew infinite families of 3-designs are obtained in this constructionfor any odd integer . In particular, twonew infinite families of 3-designs are obtained in this constructionfor any odd integer , whose parameters are ,and .     

Spectral-Null Codes and Null Spaces of Hadamard Submatrices

Codes of length 2 ^m over {1, -1} are defined as null spaces of certain submatrices of Hadamard matrices. It is shown that the codewords of all have an rth order spectral null at zero frequency. Establishing the connection between and the parity-check matrix of Reed-Muller codes, the minimum distance of is obtained along with upper bounds on the redundancy of . An efficient algorithm is presented for encoding unconstrained binary sequences into .     

On Codes Identifying Sets of Vertices in Hamming Spaces

A code is called (t, 2)-identifying if for all the words x, y(x y) and the sets (B _t (x) B _t (y)) C and are nonempty and different. Constructions of such codes and a lower bound on the cardinality of these codes are given. The lower bound is shown to be sharp in some cases. We also discuss a more general notion of -identifying codes and introduce weakly identifying codes.     

Lower Bounds on the State Complexity of Geometric Goppa Codes

We reinterpret the state space dimension equations for geometric Goppa codes. An easy consequence is that if deg then the state complexity of is equal to the Wolf bound. For deg , we use Clifford's theorem to give a simple lower bound on the state complexity of . We then derive two further lower bounds on the state space dimensions of in terms of the gonality sequence of . (The gonality sequence is known for many of the function fields of interest for defining geometric Goppa codes.) One of the gonality bounds uses previous results on the generalised weight hierarchy of and one follows in a straightforward way from first principles; often they are equal. For Hermitian codes both gonality bounds are equal to the DLP lower bound on state space dimensions. We conclude by using these results to calculate the DLP lower bound on state complexity for Hermitian codes.     

The Classification of Some Perfect Codes

Perfect 1-error correcting codes C in Z ₂ ⁿ , where n=2 ^m–1, are considered. Let ; denote the linear span of the words of C and let the rank of C be the dimension of the vector space . It is shown that if the rank of C is n–m+2 then C is equivalent to a code given by a construction of Phelps. These codes are, in case of rank n–m+2, described by a Hamming code H and a set of MDS-codes D _h , h H, over an alphabet with four symbols. The case of rank n–m+1 is much simpler: Any such code is a Vasil'ev code.     

Minihypers and Linear Codes Meeting the Griesmer Bound: Improvements to Results of Hamada, Helleseth and Maekawa

This article improves results of Hamada, Helleseth and Maekawa on minihypers in projective spaces and linear codes meeting the Griesmer bound.In [10,12],it was shown that any -minihyper, with , where , is the disjoint union of points, lines,..., -dimensional subspaces. For q large, we improve on this result by increasing the upper bound on non-square, to non-square, square, , and (4) for square, p prime, p<3, to . In the case q non-square, the conclusion is the same as written above; the minihyper is the disjoint union of subspaces. When q is square however, the minihyper is either the disjoint union of subspaces, or the disjoint union of subspaces and one subgeometry . For the coding-theoretical problem, our results classify the corresponding codes meeting the Griesmer bound.     

Cyclic Designs with Block Size 4 and Related Optimal Optical Orthogonal Codes

We prove the existence of a cyclic (4p, 4, 1)-BIBD—and hence, equivalently, that of a cyclic (4, 1)-GDD of type 4 ^p —for any prime such that (p–1)/6 has a prime factor q not greater than 19. This was known only for q=2, i.e., for . In this case an explicit construction was given for . Here, such an explicit construction is also realized for .We also give a strong indication about the existence of a cyclic (4p 4, 1)-BIBD for any prime , p>7. The existence is guaranteed for p>(2q ³–3q ²+1)²+3q ² where q is the least prime factor of (p–1)/6.Finally, we prove, giving explicit constructions, the existence of a cyclic (4, 1)-GDD of type 6 ^p for any prime p>5 and the existence of a cyclic (4, 1)-GDD of type 8 ^p for any prime . The result on GDD's with group size 6 was already known but our proof is new and very easy.All the above results may be translated in terms of optimal optical orthogonal codes of weight four with =1.     

Stickelberger Codes

Let p be an odd prime and be a primitive p th root of unity over . The Galois group G of over is a cyclic group of order p-1. The integral group ring [G] contains the Stickelberger ideal S _p which annihilates the ideal class group of K. In this paper we investigate the parameters of cyclic codes S _p (q) obtained as reductions of S _p modulo primes q which we call Stickelberger codes. In particular, we show that the dimension of S _p (p) is related to the index of irregularity of p, i.e., the number of Bernoulli numbers B _2k , , which are divisible by p. We then develop methods to compute the generator polynomial of S _p (p). This gives rise to anew algorithm for the computation of the index of irregularity of a prime. As an application we show that 20,001,301 is regular. This significantly improves a previous record of 8,388,019 on the largest explicitly known regular prime.     

Automorphisms of Constant Weight Codes and of Divisible Designs

We show that the automorphism group of a divisible design is isomorphic to a subgroup H of index 1 or 2 in the automorphism group of the associated constant weight code. Only in very special cases H is not the full automorphism group.     

On Generalized Hamming Weights for Galois Ring Linear Codes

The definition of generalized Hamming weights (GHW) for linear codes over Galois rings is discussed. The properties of GHW for Galois ring linear codes are stated. Upper and existence bounds for GHW of – linear codes and a lower bound for GHW of the Kerdock code over – are derived. GHW of some – linear codes are determined.     

Matrix Groups Related to the Quaternion Group and Spherical Orbit Codes

We consider a finite matrix group with 3⁴· 2¹⁶ elements, which is a subgroup of the infinite group , where is the regular representation of the quaternion group and C is a matrix that transforms the regular representation Q to its cellwise-diagonal form. There is a number of ways to define the matrix C. Our aim is to make the group similar in a certain sense to a finite group. The eventual choice of an appropriate matrix C done heuristically. We study the structure of the group and use this group to construct spherical orbit codes on the unit Euclidean sphere in R⁸. These codes have code distance less than 1. One of them has 3²· 2⁸ = 2304 elements and its squared Euclidean code distance is 0.293. Communicated by: V. A. Zinoviev     

On the Nonexistence of q-ary Linear Codes of Dimension Five

There do not exist codes over the Galois field GF attaining the Griesmer bound for for andfor for .     

On Lower Bounds For Covering Codes

We study lower bounds on K(n,R), the minimum number of codewords of any binary code of length n such that the Hamming spheres of radius R with center at codewords cover the Hamming space . We generalize Honkala's idea toobtain further improvements only by using some simple observationsof Zhang's result. This leads to nineteen improvements of thelower bound on K(n,R) within the range of .     

The Invariants of the Clifford Groups

The automorphism group of the Barnes-Wall lattice L _m in dimension 2 ^m (m ; 3) is a subgroup of index 2 in a certain Clifford group of structure 2 ₊ ^1+2m . O ⁺(2m,2). This group and its complex analogue of structure .Sp(2m, 2) have arisen in recent years in connection with the construction of orthogonal spreads, Kerdock sets, packings in Grassmannian spaces, quantum codes, Siegel modular forms and spherical designs. In this paper we give a simpler proof of Runge@apos;s 1996 result that the space of invariants for of degree 2k is spanned by the complete weight enumerators of the codes , where C ranges over all binary self-dual codes of length 2k; these are a basis if m k - 1. We also give new constructions for L _m and : let M be the -lattice with Gram matrix . Then L _m is the rational part of M ^m, and = Aut(M^m). Also, if C is a binary self-dual code not generated by vectors of weight 2, then is precisely the automorphism group of the complete weight enumerator of . There are analogues of all these results for the complex group , with doubly-even self-dual code instead of self-dual code.     

Combinatorial S >n-Modules as Codes

Certain -modules related to the kernels ofincidence maps between types in the poset defined by the natural productorder on the set of n-tuples with entries from {1, ,m} are studied as linear codes (whencoefficients are extended to an arbitrary field K). Theirdimensions and minimal weights are computed. The Specht modules areextremal among these submodules. The minimum weight codewords of theSpecht module are shown to be scalar multiples of polytabloids. Ageneralization of t-design arising from the natural permutationS _n-modules labelled by partitions with mparts is introduced. A connection with Reed-Muller codes is noted and acharacteristic free formulation is presented.     

Split Orthogonal Arrays and Maximum Independent Resilient Systems of Functions

A system of (Boolean) functions in variables is called randomized if the functions preserve the property of their variables to be independent and uniformly distributed random variables. Such a system is referred to as -resilient if for any substitution of constants for any variables, where 0 i t, the derived system of functions in variables will be also randomized. We investigate the problem of finding the maximum number of functions in variables of which any form a -resilient system. This problem is reduced to the minimization of the size of certain combinatorial designs, which we call split orthogonal arrays. We extend some results of design and coding theory, in particular, a duality in bounding the optimal sizes of codes and designs, in order to obtain upper and lower bounds on . In some cases, these bounds turn out to be very tight. In particular, for some infinite subsequences of integers they allow us to prove that , , , , . We also find a connection of the problem considered with the construction of unequal-error-protection codes and superimposed codes for multiple access in the Hamming channel.     

A Necessary and Sufficient Condition for the Existence of Some Ternary [n, k, d] Codes Meeting the Greismer Bound

Let k and d be any integers such that k 4 and . Then there exist two integers and in {0,1,2} such that . The purpose of this paper is to prove that (1) in the case k 5 and (,) = (0,1), there exists a ternary code meeting the Griesmer bound if and only if and (2) in the case k 4 and (,) = (0,2) or (1,1), there is no ternary code meeting the Griesmer bound for any integers k and d and (3) in the case k 5 and , there is no projective ternary code for any integers k and such that 1k-3, where and for any integer i 0. In the special case k=6, it follows from (1) that there is no ternary linear code with parameters [233,6,154] , [234,6,155] or [237,6,157] which are new results.     

Hyperplane Sections of Kantor's Unitary Ovoids

The projective plane is embedded as a variety of projective points in , where M is a nine dimensional -module for the groupG=GL(3,q ²). The hyperplane sections of thisvariety and their stabilizers in the group G aredetermined. When q 2 (mod 3) one such hyperplanesection is a member of the family of Kantor's unitary ovoids.We furtherdetermine all sections whereD has codimension two in M and demonstratethat these are never empty. Consequences are drawn for Kantor'sovoids.     

Optimal Subcodes of Second Order Reed-Muller Codes andMaximal Linear Spaces of Bivectors of Maximal Rank

There are exactlytwo non-equivalent [32,11,12]-codes in the binaryReed-Muller code which contain and have the weight set {0,12,16,20,32}. Alternatively,the 4-spaces in the projective space over the vector space for which all points have rank 4 fall into exactlytwo orbits under the natural action of PGL(5) on .     

The Automorphism Groups of BCH Codes and of Some Affine-Invariant Codes Over Extension Fields

Affine-invariant codes are extended cyclic codes of length p ^m invariant under the affine-group acting on . This class of codes includes codes of great interest such as extended narrow-sense BCH codes. In recent papers, we classified the automorphism groups of affine-invariant codes berg, bech1. We derive here new results, especially when the alphabet field is an extension field, by expanding our previous tools. In particular we complete our results on BCH codes, giving the automorphism groups of extended narrow-sense BCH codes defined over any extension field.