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

Shadow bounds for self-dual codes

Conway and Sloane (1990) have previously given an upper bound on the minimum distance of a singly-even self-dual binary code, using the concept of the shadow of a self-dual code. We improve their bound, finding that the minimum distance of a self-dual binary code of length n is at most 4[n/24]+4, except when n mod 24=22, when the bound is 4[n/24]+6. We also show that a code of length a multiple of 24 meeting the bound cannot be singly-even. The same technique gives similar results for additive codes over GF(4) (relevant to quantum coding theory)

New asymptotic bounds for self-dual codes and lattices

We give an independent proof of the Krasikov-Litsyn bound d/n ≾ (1-5/^(-1/4))/2 on doubly-even self-dual binary codes. The technique used (a refinement of the Mallows-Odlyzko-Sloane approach) extends easily to other families of self-dual codes, modular lattices, and quantum codes; in particular, we show that the Krasikov-Litsyn bound applies to singly-even binary codes, and obtain an analogous bound for unimodular lattices. We also show that in each case, our bound differs from the true optimum by an amount growing faster than O(√n)