Cyclotomic Constructions of Skew Hadamard Difference Sets

We revisit the old idea of constructing difference sets from cyclotomic classes. Two constructions of skew Hadamard difference sets are given in the additive groups of finite fields using unions of cyclotomic classes of order $N=2p_1^m$, where $p_1$ is a prime and $m$ a positive integer. Our main tools are index 2 Gauss sums, instead of cyclotomic numbers.Comment: 15 pages; corrected a few typos; to appear in J. Combin. Theory (A

Cyclotomic Constructions of Cyclic Codes with Length Being the Product of Two Primes

Cyclic codes are an interesting type of linear codes and have applications in communication and storage systems due to their efficient encoding and decoding algorithms. They have been studied for decades and a lot of progress has been made. In this paper, three types of generalized cyclotomy of order two and three classes of cyclic codes of length $n_1n_2$ and dimension $(n_1n_2+1)/2$ are presented and analysed, where $n_1$ and $n_2$ are two distinct primes. Bounds on their minimum odd-like weight are also proved. The three constructions produce the best cyclic codes in certain cases.Comment: 19 page