A 2-adic approach to the analysis of cyclic codes

A. R. Calderbank, Wen Ching Winnie Li, Bjorn Poonen

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20 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper describes how 2-adic numbers can be used to analyze the structure of binary cyclic codes and of cyclic codes defined over ℤ 2 a, a ≥ 2, the ring of integers modulo 2 a. It provides a 2-adic proof of a theorem of McEliece that characterizes the possible Hamming weights that can appear in a binary cyclic code. A generalization of this theorem is derived that applies to cyclic codes over ℤ 2 a that are obtained from binary cyclic codes by a sequence of Hensel lifts. This generalization characterizes the number of times a residue modulo 2 a appears as a component of an arbitrary codeword in the cyclic code. The limit of the sequence of Hensel lifts is a universal code defined over the 2-adic integers. This code was first introduced by Calderbank and Sloane (1995), and is the main subject of this paper. Binary cyclic codes and cyclic codes over ℤ 2 aare obtained from these universal codes by reduction modulo some power of 2. A special case of particular interest is cyclic codes over ℤ 4 that are obtained from binary cyclic codes by means of a single Hensel lift. The binary images of such codes under the Gray isometry include the Kerdock, Preparata, and Delsarte-Goethals codes. These are nonlinear binary codes that contain more codewords than any linear code presently known. Fundamental understanding of the composition of codewords in cyclic codes over ℤ 4 is central to the search for more families of optimal codes. This paper also constructs even unimodular lattices from the Hensel lift of extended binary cyclic codes that are self-dual with all Hamming weights divisible by 4. The Leech lattice arises in this way as do extremal lattices in dimensions 32 through 48.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)977-986
Number of pages10
JournalIEEE Transactions on Information Theory
Volume43
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1997

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Information Systems
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Library and Information Sciences

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