Three-weight ternary linear codes from a family of cyclic difference sets

Linear codes with a few weights have applications in data storage systems, secret sharing schemes, and authentication codes. Recently, Ding (IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 61(6):3265–3275, 2015) proposed a class of ternary linear codes with three weights from a family of cyclic difference sets in \(({\mathbb {F}}_{3^m}^*/{\mathbb {F}}_{3}^*,\times )\), where \(m=3k\) and k is odd. One objective of this paper is to construct ternary linear codes with three weights from cyclic difference sets in \(({\mathbb {F}}_{3^m}^*/{\mathbb {F}}_{3}^*,\times )\) derived from the Helleseth–Gong functions. This construction works for any positive integer \(m=sk\) with an odd factor \(s\ge 3\), and thus leads to three-weight ternary linear codes with more flexible parameters than earlier ones mentioned above. Another objective of this paper is to determine the weight distribution of the proposed linear codes.     

Construction of optimal ternary constant weight codes via Bhaskar Rao designs

In this note, we consider a construction for optimal ternary constant weight codes (CWCs) via Bhaskar Rao designs (BRDs). The known existence results for BRDs are employed to generate many new optimal nonlinear ternary CWCs with constant weight 4 and minimum Hamming distance 5.     

Hermitian LCD codes from cyclic codes

Cyclic codes are an interesting type of linear codes and have wide applications in communication and storage systems due to their efficient encoding and decoding algorithms. It was proved that asymptotically good Hermitian LCD codes exist. The objective of this paper is to construct some cyclic Hermitian LCD codes over finite fields and analyse their parameters. The dimensions of these codes are settled and the lower bounds on their minimum distances are presented. Most Hermitian LCD codes presented in this paper are not BCH codes.     

Linear recurring sequences and subfield subcodes of cyclic codes

Linear recurring sequences over finite fields play an important role in coding theory and cryptography. It is known that subfield subcodes of linear codes yield some good codes. In this paper, we study linear recurring sequences and subfield subcodes. Let Mqm(f(x)) denote the set of all linear recurring sequences over Fqm with characteristic polynomial f(x) over Fqm . Denote the restriction of Mqm(f(x)) to sequences over Fq and the set after applying trace function to each sequence in Mqm(f(x)) by Mqm(f(x)) | Fq and Tr( Mqm(f(x))), respectively. It is shown that these two sets are both complete sets of linear recurring sequences over Fq with some characteristic polynomials over Fq. In this paper, we firstly determine the characteristic polynomials for these two sets. Then, using these results, we determine the generator polynomials of subfield subcodes and trace codes of cyclic codes over Fqm .     

AMDS symbol-pair codes from repeated-root cyclic codes

Symbol-pair codes are proposed to guard against pair-errors in symbol-pair read channels. The minimum symbol-pair distance is of significance in determining the error-correcting capability of a symbol-pair code. One of the central themes in symbol-pair coding theory is the constructions of symbol-pair codes with the largest possible minimum symbol-pair distance. Maximum distance separable (MDS) and almost maximum distance separable (AMDS) symbol-pair codes are optimal and sub-optimal regarding the Singleton bound, respectively. In this paper, six new classes of AMDS symbol-pair codes are explicitly constructed through repeated-root cyclic codes. Remarkably, one class of such codes has unbounded lengths and the minimum symbol-pair distance of another class can reach 13.     

MDS symbol-pair codes from repeated-root cyclic codes

Designs, Codes and Cryptography - Symbol-pair codes are proposed to protect against pair-errors in symbol-pair read channels. The research of symbol-pair codes with the largest possible minimum...     

Several classes of optimal ternary cyclic codes with minimal distance four

In this paper, by analyzing the solutions of certain equations over ${\mathbb{F}}_{3^m}$, we present four classes of optimal ternary cyclic codes with parameters $[3^m-1,3^m-1-2m,4]$. It is shown that some recent work on this class of optimal ternary cyclic codes are special cases of our results.     

Extremal self-dual codes from symmetric designs

A method is given for constructing extremal binary self-dual [42, 21, 8]-codes from certain symmetric 2-(41, 16, 6) designs.     

On the support designs of extremal binary doubly even self-dual codes

Let \(D\) be the support design of the minimum weight of an extremal binary doubly even self-dual \([24m,12m,4m+4]\) code. In this note, we consider the case when \(D\) becomes a \(t\) -design with \(t \ge 6\) .     

Linear codes from simplicial complexes

In this article we introduce a method of constructing binary linear codes and computing their weights by means of Boolean functions arising from mathematical objects called simplicial complexes. Inspired by Adamaszek (Am Math Mon 122:367–370, 2015) we introduce n-variable generating functions associated with simplicial complexes and derive explicit formulae. Applying the construction (Carlet in Finite Field Appl 13:121–135, 2007; Wadayama in Des Codes Cryptogr 23:23–33, 2001) of binary linear codes to Boolean functions arising from simplicial complexes, we obtain a class of optimal linear codes and a class of minimal linear codes.     

Constructions for optimal cyclic ternary constant-weight codes of weight four and distance six

A cyclic ${(n,d,w)}_q$ code is a $q$-ary cyclic code of length $n$, minimum Hamming distance $d$ and weight $w$. In this paper, we investigate cyclic ${(n,6,4)}_3$ codes. A new upper bound on $C{A}_3(n,6,4)$, the largest possible number of codewords in a cyclic ${(n,6,4)}_3$ code, is given. Two new constructions for optimal cyclic ${(n,6,4)}_3$ codes based on cyclic $(n,4,1)$ difference packings are presented. As a consequence, the exact value of $C{A}_3(n,6,4)$ is determined for any positive integer $n\equiv 0,6,18(mod24)$. We also obtain some other infinite classes of optimal cyclic ${(n,6,4)}_3$ codes.     

Optimal ternary linear codes

Let n _q (k, d) denote the smallest value of n for which there exists a linear [n, k, d]-code over GF(q). An [n, k, d]-code whose length is equal to n _q (k, d) is called optimal. The problem of finding n _q (k, d)has received much attention for the case q = 2. We generalize several results to the case of an arbitrary prime power q as well as introducing new results and a detailed methodology to enable the problem to be tackled over any finite field.In particular, we study the problem with q = 3 and determine n ₃(k, d) for all d when k 4, and n ₃(5, d) for all but 30 values of d.     

Good equidistant codes constructed from certain combinatorial designs

An (n,M,d;q) code is called equidistant code if the Hamming distance between any two codewords is d. It was proved that for any equidistant (n,M,d;q) code, d?nM(q-1)/(M-1)q(=d_opt, say). A necessary condition for the existence of an optimal equidistant code is that d_opt be an integer. If d_opt is not an integer, i.e. the equidistant code is not optimal, then the code with d=⌊d_opt⌋ is called good equidistant code, which is obviously the best possible one among equidistant codes with parameters n,M and q. In this paper, some constructions of good equidistant codes from balanced arrays and nested BIB designs are described.     

Switching codes and designs

Various local transformations of combinatorial structures (codes, designs, and related structures) that leave the basic parameters unaltered are here unified under the principle of switching. The purpose of the study is threefold: presentation of the switching principle, unification of earlier results (including a new result for covering codes), and applying switching exhaustively to some common structures with small parameters.     

Optimal ternary quasi-cyclic codes

Quasi-cyclic codes have provided a rich source of good linear codes. Previous constructions of quasi-cyclic codes have been confined mainly to codes whose length is a multiple of the dimension. In this paper it is shown how searches may be extended to codes whose length is a multiple of some integer which is greater than the dimension. The particular case of 5-dimensional codes over GF(3) is considered and a number of optimal codes (i.e., [n, k, d]-codes having largest possible minimum distance d for given length n and dimension k) are constructed. These include ternary codes with parameters [45, 5, 28], [36, 5, 22], [42, 5, 26], [48, 5, 30] and [72, 5, 46], all of which improve on the previously best known bounds.This research has been supported by the British SERC.     

Unitary designs and codes

A unitary design is a collection of unitary matrices that approximate the entire unitary group, much like a spherical design approximates the entire unit sphere. In this paper, we use irreducible representations of the unitary group to find a general lower bound on the size of a unitary t-design in U(d), for any d and t. We also introduce the notion of a unitary code—a subset of U(d) in which the trace inner product of any pair of matrices is restricted to only a small number of distinct absolute values—and give an upper bound for the size of a code with s inner product values in U(d), for any d and s. These bounds can be strengthened when the particular inner product values that occur in the code or design are known. Finally, we describe some constructions of designs: we give an upper bound on the size of the smallest weighted unitary t-design in U(d), and we catalogue some t-designs that arise from finite groups.      

Partial permutation decoding for codes from affine geometry designs

We find explicit PD-sets for partial permutation decoding of the generalized Reed-Muller codes from the affine geometry designs of points and lines in dimension 3 over the prime field of order p, using the information sets found in [8]. This work was supported by the DoD Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program administered by the Office of Naval Research under Grant N00014-00-1-0565.