Quantum Error Correction via Codes over GF(4)

The problem of finding quantum error-correcting codes is transformed into the problem of finding additive codes over the field GF(4) which are self-orthogonal with respect to a certain trace inner product. Many new codes and new bounds are presented, as well as a table of upper and lower bounds on such codes of length up to 30 qubits.Comment: Latex, 46 pages. To appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. Replaced Sept. 24, 1996, to correct a number of minor errors. Replaced Sept. 10, 1997. The second section has been completely rewritten, and should hopefully be much clearer. We have also added a new section discussing the developments of the past year. Finally, we again corrected a number of minor error

Trellis decoding complexity of linear block codes

In this partially tutorial paper, we examine minimal trellis representations of linear block codes and analyze several measures of trellis complexity: maximum state and edge dimensions, total span length, and total vertices, edges and mergers. We obtain bounds on these complexities as extensions of well-known dimension/length profile (DLP) bounds. Codes meeting these bounds minimize all the complexity measures simultaneously; conversely, a code attaining the bound for total span length, vertices, or edges, must likewise attain it for all the others. We define a notion of “uniform” optimality that embraces different domains of optimization, such as different permutations of a code or different codes with the same parameters, and we give examples of uniformly optimal codes and permutations. We also give some conditions that identify certain cases when no code or permutation can meet the bounds. In addition to DLP-based bounds, we derive new inequalities relating one complexity measure to another, which can be used in conjunction with known bounds on one measure to imply bounds on the others. As an application, we infer new bounds on maximum state and edge complexity and on total vertices and edges from bounds on span lengths

Self-Dual Codes

Self-dual codes are important because many of the best codes known are of this type and they have a rich mathematical theory. Topics covered in this survey include codes over F_2, F_3, F_4, F_q, Z_4, Z_m, shadow codes, weight enumerators, Gleason-Pierce theorem, invariant theory, Gleason theorems, bounds, mass formulae, enumeration, extremal codes, open problems. There is a comprehensive bibliography.Comment: 136 page

An improved upper bound on the minimum distance of doubly-even self-dual codes

We derive a new upper bound on the minimum distance d of doubly-even self-dual codes of length n. Asymptotically, for n growing, it gives limn→∞ sup d/n <=(5-5^3/4)/10 <0.165630, thus improving on the Mallows-Odlyzko-Sloane bound of 1/6 and our recent bound of 0.16631

Numerical and analytical bounds on threshold error rates for hypergraph-product codes

We study analytically and numerically decoding properties of finite rate hypergraph-product quantum LDPC codes obtained from random (3,4)-regular Gallager codes, with a simple model of independent X and Z errors. Several non-trival lower and upper bounds for the decodable region are constructed analytically by analyzing the properties of the homological difference, equal minus the logarithm of the maximum-likelihood decoding probability for a given syndrome. Numerical results include an upper bound for the decodable region from specific heat calculations in associated Ising models, and a minimum weight decoding threshold of approximately 7%.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

Estimates for the range of binomiality in codes' spectra

We derive new estimates for the range of binomiality in a code’s spectra, where the distance distribution of a code is upperbounded by the corresponding normalized binomial distribution. The estimates depend on the code’s dual distance