An efficient method to find the minimum distance of linear block codes

Some aspects of the algorithms for calculating the minimum distance of linear codes over finite fields are presented.

In this study we consider Euclidean and Hermitian self-dual codes over the direct product ring $\mathbb {F}_{2} \times (\mathbb {F}_{2}+v\mathbb {F}_{2})$ where v2 = v. We obtain some theoretical outcomes about self-dual codes via the generator matrices of free linear codes over $\mathbb {F}_{2} \times (\mathbb {F}_{2}+v\mathbb {F}_{2})$ . Also, we obtain upper bounds on the minimum distance of linear codes for both the Lee distance and the Gray distance. Moreover, we find some free Euclidean and free Hermitian self-dual codes over $\mathbb {F}_{2} \times (\mathbb {F}_{2}+v\mathbb {F}_{2})$ via some useful construction methods.

Finding the minimum distance of linear codes is one of the main problems in coding theory. The importance of the minimum distance comes from its error-correcting and error-detecting capability of the handled codes. It was proven that this problem is an NP-hard that is the solution of this problem can be guessed and verified in polynomial time but no particular rule is followed to make the guess and some meta-heuristic approaches in the literature have been used to solve this problem. In this paper, swarm-based optimization techniques, bat and firefly, are applied to the minimum distance problem by integrating the algebraic operator to the handled algorithms.

Fast parallel computation of reduced row echelon form to find the minimum distance of linear codes

It is known that quasi-cyclic (QC) codes over the finite field 𝔽q correspond to certain 𝔽q[x]-modules. A QC code C is specified by a generator polynomial matrix G whose rows generate C as an 𝔽q[x]-module. The reversed code of C, denoted by R, is the code obtained by reversing all codewords of C while the dual code of C is denoted by C⊥. We call C reversible, self-orthogonal, and self-dual if R = C, C⊥ ⊇ C, and C⊥ = C, respectively. In this study, for a given C, we find an explicit formula for a generator polynomial matrix of R. A necessary and sufficient condition for C to be reversible is derived from this formula. In addition, we reveal the relations among C, R, and C⊥. Specifically, we give conditions on G corresponding to C⊥ ⊇ R, C⊥ ⊆ R, and C = R = C⊥. As an application, we employ these theoretical results to the construction of QC codes with best parameters. Computer search is used to show that there exist various binary reversible self-orthogonal QC codes that achieve the upper bounds on the minimum distance of linear codes.

In this paper, an exact distance spectrum formula for the largest minimum Hamming distance of finite-length binary block codes is presented. The exact formula indicates that the largest minimum distance of finite-length block codes can be fully characterized by the information spectrum of the Hamming distance between two independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) random codewords. The distance property of finite-length block codes is then connected to the distance spectrum. A side result of this work is a new lower bound to the largest minimum distance of finite-length block codes. Numerical examinations show that the new lower bound improves the finite-length Gilbert-Varshamov lower bound and can reach the minimum distance of existing finite-length block codes.

We obtain a characterization on self-orthogonality for a given binary linear code in terms of the number of column vectors in its generator matrix, which extends the result of Bouyukliev et al. (2006). As an application, we give an algorithmic method to embed a given binary k-dimensional linear code <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">C</i> ( k = 3,4) into a self-orthogonal code of the shortest length which has the same dimension k and minimum distance d' ≥ d( <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">C</i> ). For k > 4, we suggest a recursive method to embed a k-dimensional linear code to a self-orthogonal code. We also give new explicit formulas for the minimum distances of optimal self-orthogonal codes for any length n with dimension 4 and any length n \not ≡ 6, 13,14,21,22,28,29 (mod 31) with dimension 5.

A characterization of MDS codes that have an error correcting pair

Let $q$ be a power of 2 and $\gamma\le q$ an integer. Based on the codewords of $[q,2,q-1]$ extended Reed-Solomon (RS) code over the finite field $\mathbb {F}_q$ , we can construct a $(\gamma,q)$ -regular low-density parity-check (LDPC) code, called a full-length RS-LDPC code and denoted by $\mathcal{C}(\gamma,q)$ . In this letter, the minimum distance of these codes is investigated. For any given $q$ and $\gamma\le q$ , an upper bound on $d(\mathcal{C}(\gamma,q))$ , the minimum distance of $\mathcal{C}(\gamma,q)$ , is provided. Furthermore, we determine the values of $d(\mathcal{C}(\gamma,q))$ for $\gamma=2$ , 3, and 4, and present the closed-form expressions on the numbers of minimum-weight codewords in $\mathcal{C}(\gamma,q)$ for $\gamma=2$ and 3.

Belov, Logachev and Sandimirov construct linear codes of minimum distance d for roughly 1/q k/2 of the values of d < q k-1. In this article we shall prove that, for q = p prime and roughly $${\frac{3}{8}}$$ -th's of the values of d < q k-1, there is no linear code meeting the Griesmer bound. This result uses Blokhuis' theorem on the size of a t-fold blocking set in PG(2, p), p prime, which we generalise to higher dimensions. We also give more general lower bounds on the size of a t-fold blocking set in PG(?, q), for arbitrary q and ? ? 3. It is known that from a linear code of dimension k with minimum distance d < q k-1 that meets the Griesmer bound one can construct a t-fold blocking set of PG(k?1, q). Here, we calculate explicit formulas relating t and d. Finally we show, using the generalised version of Blokhuis' theorem, that nearly all linear codes over $${{\mathbb F}_p}$$ of dimension k with minimum distance d < q k-1, which meet the Griesmer bound, have codewords of weight at least d + p in subcodes, which contain codewords satisfying certain hypotheses on their supports.

We propose a technique for improving LP decoding, based on the merging of check nodes. This technique can be applied to standard as well as generalized LDPC codes. Furthermore, we show how a recently-discovered linear-complexity LP decoder can be used to derive non-trivial lower bounds on the minimum distance of specific LDPC codes, with complexity that exhibits quadratic growth with respect to the block length. This bound can be refined using the check node merging technique. The lower bound on the minimum distance is shown to be an upper bound on the fractional distance of the code.

We deal with the minimum distances of q-ary cyclic codes of length q^m-1 generated by products of two distinct minimal polynomials, give a necessary and sufficient condition for the case that the minimum distance is two, show that the minimum distance is at most three if q>3, and consider also the case q=3.

Constructing quantum low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes with a minimum distance that grows faster than a square root of the length has been a major challenge of the field. With this challenge in mind, we investigate constructions that come from high-dimensional expanders, in particular Ramanujan complexes. These naturally give rise to very unbalanced quantum error correcting codes that have a large $X$-distance but a much smaller $Z$-distance. However, together with a classical expander LDPC code and a tensoring method that generalizes a construction of Hastings and also the Tillich--Zémor construction of quantum codes, we obtain quantum LDPC codes whose minimum distance exceeds the square root of the code length and whose dimension comes close to a square root of the code length. When the ingredient is a 2-dimensional Ramanujan complex, or the 2-skeleton of a 3-dimensional Ramanujan complex, we obtain a quantum LDPC code of minimum distance $n^{1/2}\log^{1/2}n$. We then exploit the expansion properties of the complex to devise the first polynomial-time algorithm that decodes above the square root barrier for quantum LDPC codes. Using a 3-dimensional Ramanujan complex, we also obtain an overall quantum code of minimum distance $n^{1/2}\log n$, which sets a new record for quantum LDPC codes.

An [$$n, k, d$$n,k,d] code is a binary linear code of block length $$n$$n, dimension $$k$$k and minimum Hamming distance $$d$$d. Since the minimum distance determines the error detection or correction capability, it is desired that $$d$$d is as large as possible for the given block length $$n$$n and dimension $$k$$k. One of the most fundamental problems in coding theory is to construct codes with best possible minimum distances. This problem is very difficult in both theory and practice. During the last decades, it has proved that the class of quasi-cyclic (QC) codes contain many such codes. In this paper, augmentation of binary QC codes is studied. A new augmentation algorithm is presented, and 10 new $$h$$h-generator QC codes that are better than previously known code have been constructed. Furthermore, Construction X has been applied to obtain another 18 new improved binary linear codes. With the standard construction techniques, a total of 124 new binary linear codes that improve the lower bound on the minimum distance have been obtained.

A simple method based on Newton's identities and their extensions is presented for determining the actual minimum distance of cyclic codes. More significantly, it is shown that this method also provides a mechanism for generating the type of syndrome matrices needed by Feng and Tzeng's (see ibid., vol.40, p.1364-1374, Sept. 1994) new procedure for decoding cyclic and BCH codes up to their actual minimum distance. Two procedures for generating such matrices are given. With these procedures, we have generated syndrome matrices having only one class of conjugate syndromes on the minor diagonal for all binary cyclic codes of length n<63 and many codes of length 63/spl les/n/spl les/99. A listing of such syndrome matrices for selected codes of length n<63 is included. An interesting connection of the method presented to the shifting technique of van Lint (1986) and Wilson is also noted.