Spherical designs and lattices

In this article we prove that integral lattices with minimum <= 7 (or <= 9) whose set of minimal vectors form spherical 9-designs (or 11-designs respectively) are extremal, even and unimodular. We furthermore show that there does not exist an integral lattice with minimum <=11 which yields a 13-design.Comment: The final publication is available at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13366-013-0155-

Spherical Designs and Heights of Euclidean Lattices

We study the connection between the theory of spherical designs and the question of extrema of the height function of lattices. More precisely, we show that a full-rank n-dimensional Euclidean lattice, all layers of which hold a spherical 2-design, realises a stationary point for the height function, which is defined as the first derivative at 0 of the spectral zeta function of the associated flat torus. Moreover, in order to find out the lattices for which this 2-design property holds, a strategy is described which makes use of theta functions with spherical coefficients, viewed as elements of some space of modular forms. Explicit computations in dimension up to 7, performed with Pari/GP and Magma, are reported.Comment: 22 page

Conformal Designs based on Vertex Operator Algebras

We introduce the notion of a conformal design based on a vertex operator algebra. This notation is a natural analog of the notion of block designs or spherical designs when the elements of the design are based on self-orthogonal binary codes or integral lattices, respectively. It is shown that the subspaces of fixed degree of an extremal self-dual vertex operator algebra form conformal 11-, 7-, or 3-designs, generalizing similar results of Assmus-Mattson and Venkov for extremal doubly-even codes and extremal even lattices. Other examples are coming from group actions on vertex operator algebras, the case studied first by Matsuo. The classification of conformal 6- and 8-designs is investigated. Again, our results are analogous to similar results for codes and lattices.Comment: 35 pages with 1 table, LaTe

Spherical 2-Designs and Lattices from Abelian Groups

We consider lattices generated by finite Abelian groups. The main result says that such a lattice is strongly eutactic, which means the normalized minimal vectors of the lattice form a spherical 2-design, if and only if the group is of odd order or if it is a power of the group of order 2. This result also yields a criterion for the appropriately normalized minimal vectors to constitute a uniform normalized tight frame

Boris Venkov's Theory of Lattices and Spherical Designs

Boris Venkov passed away on November 10 2011 just 5 days before his 77th birthday. This article gives a short survey of the mathematical work of Boris Venkov in this direction