New Upper Bounds on Codes via Association Schemes and Linear Programming

Let A(n, d) denote the maximum number of codewords in a binary code of length n and minimum Hamming distance d. Upper and lower bounds on A(n, d) have been a subject for extensive research. In this paper we examine upper bounds on A(n, d) as a special case of bounds on the size of subsets in metric association scheme. We will first obtain general bounds on the size of such subsets, apply these bounds to the binary Hamming scheme, and use linear programming to further improve the bounds. We show that the sphere packing bound and the Johnson bound as well as other bounds are special cases of one of the bounds obtained from association schemes. Specific bounds on A(n, d) as well as on the sizes of constant weight codes are also discussed

Commutative association schemes

Association schemes were originally introduced by Bose and his co-workers in the design of statistical experiments. Since that point of inception, the concept has proved useful in the study of group actions, in algebraic graph theory, in algebraic coding theory, and in areas as far afield as knot theory and numerical integration. This branch of the theory, viewed in this collection of surveys as the "commutative case," has seen significant activity in the last few decades. The goal of the present survey is to discuss the most important new developments in several directions, including Gelfand pairs, cometric association schemes, Delsarte Theory, spin models and the semidefinite programming technique. The narrative follows a thread through this list of topics, this being the contrast between combinatorial symmetry and group-theoretic symmetry, culminating in Schrijver's SDP bound for binary codes (based on group actions) and its connection to the Terwilliger algebra (based on combinatorial symmetry). We propose this new role of the Terwilliger algebra in Delsarte Theory as a central topic for future work.Comment: 36 page

Combinatorial Alphabet-Dependent Bounds for Locally Recoverable Codes

Locally recoverable (LRC) codes have recently been a focus point of research in coding theory due to their theoretical appeal and applications in distributed storage systems. In an LRC code, any erased symbol of a codeword can be recovered by accessing only a small number of other symbols. For LRC codes over a small alphabet (such as binary), the optimal rate-distance trade-off is unknown. We present several new combinatorial bounds on LRC codes including the locality-aware sphere packing and Plotkin bounds. We also develop an approach to linear programming (LP) bounds on LRC codes. The resulting LP bound gives better estimates in examples than the other upper bounds known in the literature. Further, we provide the tightest known upper bound on the rate of linear LRC codes with a given relative distance, an improvement over the previous best known bounds.Comment: To appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

New and Updated Semidefinite Programming Bounds for Subspace Codes

We show that $A_2(7,4) \leq 388$ and, more generally, $A_q(7,4) \leq (q^2-q+1)[7]_q + q^4 - 2q^3 + 3q^2 - 4q + 4$ by semidefinite programming for $q \leq 101$. Furthermore, we extend results by Bachoc et al. on SDP bounds for $A_2(n,d)$, where $d$ is odd and $n$ is small, to $A_q(n,d)$ for small $q$ and small $n$