A322339 Smallest automorphism group size for a binary self-dual code of length 2n.

2, 8, 48, 384, 2688, 10752, 46080, 73728, 82944, 82944, 36864, 12288, 3072, 384, 30, 2, 1

Offset: 1

Author

Nathan J. Russell, Dec 04 2018

Keywords

• nonn

Comments

A code is usually represented by a generating matrix. The row space of the generating matrix is the code itself.

Self-dual codes are codes such all codewords are pairwise orthogonal to each other.

Two codes are called permutation equivalent if one code can be obtained by permuting the coordinates (columns) of the other code.

The automorphism group of a code is the set of permutations of the coordinates (columns) that result in the same identical code.

The values in the sequence are not calculated lower bounds. For each n there exists a binary self-dual code of length 2n with an automorphism group of size a(n).

Binary self-dual codes have been classified (accounted for) up to a certain length. The classification process requires the automorphism group size be known for each code. There is a mass formula to calculate the number of distinct binary self-dual codes of a given length. Sequence A028362 gives this count. The automorphism group size allows researchers to calculate the number of codes that are permutationally equivalent to a code. Each new binary self-dual code C of length m that is discovered will account for m!/aut(C) codes in the total number calculated by the mass formula. Aut(C) represents the automorphism size of the code C. Sequence A003179 gives number of binary self-dual codes up to permutation equivalence.

There is a notable open problem in coding theory regarding binary self-dual codes. Does there exist a type II binary self-dual code of length 72 with minimum weight 16? The founder of OEIS N. J. A. Sloane posed the question in 1973. The question has been posed in several coding theory textbooks since 1973. There are even some rewards regarding the existence and nonexistence of the code. Some of the major work involved with researching the existence of the code has involved calculating possibilities for the automorphism group of the (72, 36, 16) type II binary self-dual code. The weight distribution for the code is listed as the finite sequence A120373. The current research demonstrates that the size of the automorphism group for this code is relatively small, perhaps even trivial with size 1. This sequence shows that as the length of a binary self-dual code grows the minimum size of the automorphism group grows up to a point, namely length 18. It would appear that a binary self-dual code of length 72 would no chance at having a small automorphism group size. However, after length 18 the minimum possible automorphism size stops increasing and starts declining all the way down to trivial a(17) = 1 for length 2*17=34. This demonstrates that a trivial or small sized automorphism group does not rule out the existence of the unknown type II (72, 36, 16) code.

Examples

			The smallest automorphism group size a binary self-dual code of length 2*16 = 32 is a(16) = 2.
		

References

• N.J.A. Sloane, Is there a (72,36) d=16 self-dual code, IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, 19 (1973), 251.

Links

• W. Cary Huffman and Vera Pless, Fundamentals of Error Correcting Codes, Cambridge University Press, 2003, Pages 338-393.
• Jon-Lark Kim, A Prize Problem In Coding Theory, University of Louisville

Crossrefs

Cf. Self-Dual Codes A028362, A003179, A106162, A028363, A106163, A269455, A120373.

Cf. Self-Dual Code Automorphism Groups A322299.