Some remarks on multiplicity codes

Multiplicity codes are algebraic error-correcting codes generalizing classical polynomial evaluation codes, and are based on evaluating polynomials and their derivatives. This small augmentation confers upon them better local decoding, list-decoding and local list-decoding algorithms than their classical counterparts. We survey what is known about these codes, present some variations and improvements, and finally list some interesting open problems.Comment: 21 pages in Discrete Geometry and Algebraic Combinatorics, AMS Contemporary Mathematics Series, 201

Lifted Multiplicity Codes and the Disjoint Repair Group Property

Lifted Reed Solomon Codes (Guo, Kopparty, Sudan 2013) were introduced in the context of locally correctable and testable codes. They are multivariate polynomials whose restriction to any line is a codeword of a Reed-Solomon code. We consider a generalization of their construction, which we call lifted multiplicity codes. These are multivariate polynomial codes whose restriction to any line is a codeword of a multiplicity code (Kopparty, Saraf, Yekhanin 2014). We show that lifted multiplicity codes have a better trade-off between redundancy and a notion of locality called the t-disjoint-repair-group property than previously known constructions. More precisely, we show that, for t <=sqrt{N}, lifted multiplicity codes with length N and redundancy O(t^{0.585} sqrt{N}) have the property that any symbol of a codeword can be reconstructed in t different ways, each using a disjoint subset of the other coordinates. This gives the best known trade-off for this problem for any super-constant t < sqrt{N}. We also give an alternative analysis of lifted Reed Solomon codes using dual codes, which may be of independent interest

High rate locally-correctable and locally-testable codes with sub-polynomial query complexity

In this work, we construct the first locally-correctable codes (LCCs), and locally-testable codes (LTCs) with constant rate, constant relative distance, and sub-polynomial query complexity. Specifically, we show that there exist binary LCCs and LTCs with block length $n$, constant rate (which can even be taken arbitrarily close to 1), constant relative distance, and query complexity $\exp(\tilde{O}(\sqrt{\log n}))$. Previously such codes were known to exist only with $\Omega(n^{\beta})$ query complexity (for constant $\beta > 0$), and there were several, quite different, constructions known. Our codes are based on a general distance-amplification method of Alon and Luby~\cite{AL96_codes}. We show that this method interacts well with local correctors and testers, and obtain our main results by applying it to suitably constructed LCCs and LTCs in the non-standard regime of \emph{sub-constant relative distance}. Along the way, we also construct LCCs and LTCs over large alphabets, with the same query complexity $\exp(\tilde{O}(\sqrt{\log n}))$, which additionally have the property of approaching the Singleton bound: they have almost the best-possible relationship between their rate and distance. This has the surprising consequence that asking for a large alphabet error-correcting code to further be an LCC or LTC with $\exp(\tilde{O}(\sqrt{\log n}))$ query complexity does not require any sacrifice in terms of rate and distance! Such a result was previously not known for any $o(n)$ query complexity. Our results on LCCs also immediately give locally-decodable codes (LDCs) with the same parameters

Improved Local Testing for Multiplicity Codes

Multiplicity codes are a generalization of Reed-Muller codes which include derivatives as well as the values of low degree polynomials, evaluated in every point in ?_p^m. Similarly to Reed-Muller codes, multiplicity codes have a local nature that allows for local correction and local testing. Recently, [Karliner et al., 2022] showed that the plane test, which tests the degree of the codeword on a random plane, is a good local tester for small enough degrees. In this work we simplify and extend the analysis of local testing for multiplicity codes, giving a more general and tight analysis. In particular, we show that multiplicity codes MRM_p(m, d, s) over prime fields with arbitrary d are locally testable by an appropriate k-flat test, which tests the degree of the codeword on a random k-dimensional affine subspace. The relationship between the degree parameter d and the required dimension k is shown to be nearly optimal, and improves on [Karliner et al., 2022] in the case of planes. Our analysis relies on a generalization of the technique of canonincal monomials introduced in [Haramaty et al., 2013]. Generalizing canonical monomials to the multiplicity case requires substantially different proofs which exploit the algebraic structure of multiplicity codes