Artin's primitive root conjecture -a survey -

This is an expanded version of a write-up of a talk given in the fall of 2000 in Oberwolfach. A large part of it is intended to be understandable by non-number theorists with a mathematical background. The talk covered some of the history, results and ideas connected with Artin's celebrated primitive root conjecture dating from 1927. In the update several new results established after 2000 are also discussed.Comment: 87 pages, 512 references, to appear in Integer

Properties of trace maps and their applications to coding theory

In this thesis we study the application of trace maps over Galois fields and Galois rings in the construction of non-binary linear and non-linear codes and mutually unbiased bases. Properties of the trace map over the Galois fields and Galois rings has been used very successfully in the construction of cocyclic Hadamard, complex Hadamard and Butson Hadamard matrices and consequently to construct linear codes over integers modulo prime and prime powers. These results provide motivation to extend this work to construct codes over integers modulo . The prime factorization of integers paved the way to focus our attention on the direct product of Galois rings and Galois fields of the same degree. We define a new map over the direct product of Galois rings and Galois fields by using the usual trace maps. We study the fundamental properties of the this map and notice that these are very similar to that of the trace map over Galois rings and Galois fields. As such this map called the trace-like map and is used to construct cocyclic Butson Hadamard matrices and consequently to construct linear codes over integers modulo . We notice that the codes construct in this way over the integers modulo 6 is simplex code of type . A further generalization of the trace-like map called the weighted-trace map is defined over the direct product of Galois rings and Galois fields of different degrees. We use the weighted-trace map to construct some non-linear codes and mutually unbiased bases of odd integer dimensions. Further more we study the distribution of over the Galois fields of degree 2 and use it to construct 2-dimensional, two-weight, self-orthogonal codes and constant weight codes over integers modulo prime

Framed vertex operator algebras, codes and the moonshine module

For a simple vertex operator algebra whose Virasoro element is a sum of commutative Virasoro elements of central charge 1/2, two codes are introduced and studied. It is proved that such vertex operator algebras are rational. For lattice vertex operator algebras and related ones, decompositions into direct sums of irreducible modules for the product of the Virasoro algebras of central charge 1/2 are explicitly described. As an application, the decomposition of the moonshine vertex operator algebra is obtained for a distinguished system of 48 Virasoro algebras.Comment: Latex, 54 page

Sur l'algorithme de décodage en liste de Guruswami-Sudan sur les anneaux finis

This thesis studies the algorithmic techniques of list decoding, first proposed by Guruswami and Sudan in 1998, in the context of Reed-Solomon codes over finite rings. Two approaches are considered. First we adapt the Guruswami-Sudan (GS) list decoding algorithm to generalized Reed-Solomon (GRS) codes over finite rings with identity. We study in details the complexities of the algorithms for GRS codes over Galois rings and truncated power series rings. Then we explore more deeply a lifting technique for list decoding. We show that the latter technique is able to correct more error patterns than the original GS list decoding algorithm. We apply the technique to GRS code over Galois rings and truncated power series rings and show that the algorithms coming from this technique have a lower complexity than the original GS algorithm. We show that it can be easily adapted for interleaved Reed-Solomon codes. Finally we present the complete implementation in C and C++ of the list decoding algorithms studied in this thesis. All the needed subroutines, such as univariate polynomial root finding algorithms, finite fields and rings arithmetic, are also presented. Independently, this manuscript contains other work produced during the thesis. We study quasi cyclic codes in details and show that they are in one-to-one correspondence with left principal ideal of a certain matrix ring. Then we adapt the GS framework for ideal based codes to number fields codes and provide a list decoding algorithm for the latter.Cette thèse porte sur l'algorithmique des techniques de décodage en liste, initiée par Guruswami et Sudan en 1998, dans le contexte des codes de Reed-Solomon sur les anneaux finis. Deux approches sont considérées. Dans un premier temps, nous adaptons l'algorithme de décodage en liste de Guruswami-Sudan aux codes de Reed-Solomon généralisés sur les anneaux finis. Nous étudions en détails les complexités de l'algorithme pour les anneaux de Galois et les anneaux de séries tronquées. Dans un deuxième temps nous approfondissons l'étude d'une technique de remontée pour le décodage en liste. Nous montrons que cette derni're permet de corriger davantage de motifs d'erreurs que la technique de Guruswami-Sudan originale. Nous appliquons ensuite cette même technique aux codes de Reed-Solomon généralisés sur les anneaux de Galois et les anneaux de séries tronquées et obtenons de meilleures bornes de complexités. Enfin nous présentons l'implantation des algorithmes en C et C++ des algorithmes de décodage en liste étudiés au cours de cette thèse. Tous les sous-algorithmes nécessaires au décodage en liste, comme la recherche de racines pour les polynômes univariés, l'arithmétique des corps et anneaux finis sont aussi présentés. Indépendamment, ce manuscrit contient d'autres travaux sur les codes quasi-cycliques. Nous prouvons qu'ils sont en correspondance biunivoque avec les idéaux à gauche d'un certain anneaux de matrices. Enfin nous adaptons le cadre proposé par Guruswami et Sudan pour les codes à base d'ideaux aux codes construits à l'aide des corps de nombres. Nous fournissons un algorithme de décodage en liste dans ce contexte