Maximum Distance Separable Codes for Symbol-Pair Read Channels

We study (symbol-pair) codes for symbol-pair read channels introduced recently by Cassuto and Blaum (2010). A Singleton-type bound on symbol-pair codes is established and infinite families of optimal symbol-pair codes are constructed. These codes are maximum distance separable (MDS) in the sense that they meet the Singleton-type bound. In contrast to classical codes, where all known q-ary MDS codes have length O(q), we show that q-ary MDS symbol-pair codes can have length \Omega(q^2). In addition, we completely determine the existence of MDS symbol-pair codes for certain parameters

New bounds for bb-Symbol Distances of Matrix Product Codes

Matrix product codes are generalizations of some well-known constructions of codes, such as Reed-Muller codes, $[u+v,u-v]$-construction, etc. Recently, a bound for the symbol-pair distance of a matrix product code was given in \cite{LEL}, and new families of MDS symbol-pair codes were constructed by using this bound. In this paper, we generalize this bound to the $b$-symbol distance of a matrix product code and determine all minimum $b$-symbol distances of Reed-Muller codes. We also give a bound for the minimum $b$-symbol distance of codes obtained from the $[u+v,u-v]$-construction, and use this bound to construct some $[2n,2n-2]_q$-linear $b$-symbol almost MDS codes with arbitrary length. All the minimum $b$-symbol distances of $[n,n-1]_q$-linear codes and $[n,n-2]_q$-linear codes for $1\leq b\leq n$ are determined. Some examples are presented to illustrate these results

Several new classes of MDS symbol-pair codes derived from matrix-product codes

In order to correct the pair-errors generated during the transmission of modern high-density data storage that the outputs of the channels consist of overlapping pairs of symbols, a new coding scheme named symbol-pair code is proposed. The error-correcting capability of the symbol-pair code is determined by its minimum symbol-pair distance. For such codes, the larger the minimum symbol-pair distance, the better. It is a challenging task to construct symbol-pair codes with optimal parameters, especially, maximum-distance-separable (MDS) symbol-pair codes. In this paper, the permutation equivalence codes of matrix-product codes with underlying matrixes of orders 3 and 4 are used to extend the minimum symbol-pair distance, and six new classes of MDS symbol-pair codes are derived.Comment: 22 pages,1 tabl