On squares of cyclic codes

The square $C^{*2}$ of a linear error correcting code $C$ is the linear code spanned by the component-wise products of every pair of (non-necessarily distinct) words in $C$. Squares of codes have gained attention for several applications mainly in the area of cryptography, and typically in those applications one is concerned about some of the parameters (dimension, minimum distance) of both $C^{*2}$ and $C$. In this paper, motivated mostly by the study of this problem in the case of linear codes defined over the binary field, squares of cyclic codes are considered. General results on the minimum distance of the squares of cyclic codes are obtained and constructions of cyclic codes $C$ with relatively large dimension of $C$ and minimum distance of the square $C^{*2}$ are discussed. In some cases, the constructions lead to codes $C$ such that both $C$ and $C^{*2}$ simultaneously have the largest possible minimum distances for their length and dimensions.Comment: Accepted at IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. IEEE early access version available at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8451926

Low-Density Parity-Check Codes From Transversal Designs With Improved Stopping Set Distributions

This paper examines the construction of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes from transversal designs based on sets of mutually orthogonal Latin squares (MOLS). By transferring the concept of configurations in combinatorial designs to the level of Latin squares, we thoroughly investigate the occurrence and avoidance of stopping sets for the arising codes. Stopping sets are known to determine the decoding performance over the binary erasure channel and should be avoided for small sizes. Based on large sets of simple-structured MOLS, we derive powerful constraints for the choice of suitable subsets, leading to improved stopping set distributions for the corresponding codes. We focus on LDPC codes with column weight 4, but the results are also applicable for the construction of codes with higher column weights. Finally, we show that a subclass of the presented codes has quasi-cyclic structure which allows low-complexity encoding.Comment: 11 pages; to appear in "IEEE Transactions on Communications

Absorbing Set Analysis and Design of LDPC Codes from Transversal Designs over the AWGN Channel

In this paper we construct low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes from transversal designs with low error-floors over the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. The constructed codes are based on transversal designs that arise from sets of mutually orthogonal Latin squares (MOLS) with cyclic structure. For lowering the error-floors, our approach is twofold: First, we give an exhaustive classification of so-called absorbing sets that may occur in the factor graphs of the given codes. These purely combinatorial substructures are known to be the main cause of decoding errors in the error-floor region over the AWGN channel by decoding with the standard sum-product algorithm (SPA). Second, based on this classification, we exploit the specific structure of the presented codes to eliminate the most harmful absorbing sets and derive powerful constraints for the proper choice of code parameters in order to obtain codes with an optimized error-floor performance.Comment: 15 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1306.511

Cyclic-union operation to obtain latin squares

With the power that has taken the information technologies, one has developed the study and research about cryptography, and cryptanalysis, in which Latin squares are ideal candidates for being used in cryptographic systems because the Cayley tables of the finite groups are Latin squares. This fact has awakened a new interest in the study of Latin squares by applying them to the study of code theory and error correcting codes. They also play a significant role in the statistical theory of experimental design. In this work, we develop an algorithm for the generation of Latin squares based on the cyclic-union operation defined for effectPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Squares of matrix-product codes

The component-wise or Schur product $C*C'$ of two linear error-correcting codes $C$ and $C'$ over certain finite field is the linear code spanned by all component-wise products of a codeword in $C$ with a codeword in $C'$. When $C=C'$, we call the product the square of $C$ and denote it $C^{*2}$. Motivated by several applications of squares of linear codes in the area of cryptography, in this paper we study squares of so-called matrix-product codes, a general construction that allows to obtain new longer codes from several ``constituent'' codes. We show that in many cases we can relate the square of a matrix-product code to the squares and products of their constituent codes, which allow us to give bounds or even determine its minimum distance. We consider the well-known $(u,u+v)$-construction, or Plotkin sum (which is a special case of a matrix-product code) and determine which parameters we can obtain when the constituent codes are certain cyclic codes. In addition, we use the same techniques to study the squares of other matrix-product codes, for example when the defining matrix is Vandermonde (where the minimum distance is in a certain sense maximal with respect to matrix-product codes).This work is supported by the Danish Council for IndependentResearch: grant DFF-4002-00367, theSpanish Ministry of Economy/FEDER: grant RYC-2016-20208 (AEI/FSE/UE), the Spanish Ministry of Science/FEDER: grant PGC2018-096446-B-C21, and Junta de CyL (Spain): grant VA166G

Difference Covering Arrays and Pseudo-Orthogonal Latin Squares

Difference arrays are used in applications such as software testing, authentication codes and data compression. Pseudo-orthogonal Latin squares are used in experimental designs. A special class of pseudo-orthogonal Latin squares are the mutually nearly orthogonal Latin squares (MNOLS) first discussed in 2002, with general constructions given in 2007. In this paper we develop row complete MNOLS from difference covering arrays. We will use this connection to settle the spectrum question for sets of 3 mutually pseudo-orthogonal Latin squares of even order, for all but the order 146

On the weight distributions of several classes of cyclic codes from APN monomials

Let $m\geq 3$ be an odd integer and $p$ be an odd prime. % with $p-1=2^rh$, where $h$ is an odd integer. In this paper, many classes of three-weight cyclic codes over $\mathbb{F}_{p}$ are presented via an examination of the condition for the cyclic codes $\mathcal{C}_{(1,d)}$ and $\mathcal{C}_{(1,e)}$, which have parity-check polynomials $m_1(x)m_d(x)$ and $m_1(x)m_e(x)$ respectively, to have the same weight distribution, where $m_i(x)$ is the minimal polynomial of $\pi^{-i}$ over $\mathbb{F}_{p}$ for a primitive element $\pi$ of $\mathbb{F}_{p^m}$. %For $p=3$, the duals of five classes of the proposed cyclic codes are optimal in the sense that they meet certain bounds on linear codes. Furthermore, for $p\equiv 3 \pmod{4}$ and positive integers $e$ such that there exist integers $k$ with $\gcd(m,k)=1$ and $\tau\in\{0,1,\cdots, m-1\}$ satisfying $(p^k+1)\cdot e\equiv 2 p^{\tau}\pmod{p^m-1}$, the value distributions of the two exponential sums T(a,b)=\sum\limits_{x\in \mathbb{F}_{p^m}}\omega^{\Tr(ax+bx^e)} and S(a,b,c)=\sum\limits_{x\in \mathbb{F}_{p^m}}\omega^{\Tr(ax+bx^e+cx^s)}, where $s=(p^m-1)/2$, are settled. As an application, the value distribution of $S(a,b,c)$ is utilized to investigate the weight distribution of the cyclic codes $\mathcal{C}_{(1,e,s)}$ with parity-check polynomial $m_1(x)m_e(x)m_s(x)$. In the case of $p=3$ and even $e$ satisfying the above condition, the duals of the cyclic codes $\mathcal{C}_{(1,e,s)}$ have the optimal minimum distance