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

Distance-regular graphs

This is a survey of distance-regular graphs. We present an introduction to distance-regular graphs for the reader who is unfamiliar with the subject, and then give an overview of some developments in the area of distance-regular graphs since the monograph 'BCN' [Brouwer, A.E., Cohen, A.M., Neumaier, A., Distance-Regular Graphs, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1989] was written.Comment: 156 page

Weighing matrices and spherical codes

Mutually unbiased weighing matrices (MUWM) are closely related to an antipodal spherical code with 4 angles. In the present paper, we clarify the relationship between MUWM and the spherical sets, and give the complete solution about the maximum size of a set of MUWM of weight 4 for any order. Moreover we describe some natural generalization of a set of MUWM from the viewpoint of spherical codes, and determine several maximum sizes of the generalized sets. They include an affirmative answer of the problem of Best, Kharaghani, and Ramp.Comment: Title is changed from "Association schemes related to weighing matrices

New proofs of the Assmus-Mattson theorem based on the Terwilliger algebra

We use the Terwilliger algebra to provide a new approach to the Assmus-Mattson theorem. This approach also includes another proof of the minimum distance bound shown by Martin as well as its dual.Comment: 15 page

Rigidity of spherical codes

A packing of spherical caps on the surface of a sphere (that is, a spherical code) is called rigid or jammed if it is isolated within the space of packings. In other words, aside from applying a global isometry, the packing cannot be deformed. In this paper, we systematically study the rigidity of spherical codes, particularly kissing configurations. One surprise is that the kissing configuration of the Coxeter-Todd lattice is not jammed, despite being locally jammed (each individual cap is held in place if its neighbors are fixed); in this respect, the Coxeter-Todd lattice is analogous to the face-centered cubic lattice in three dimensions. By contrast, we find that many other packings have jammed kissing configurations, including the Barnes-Wall lattice and all of the best kissing configurations known in four through twelve dimensions. Jamming seems to become much less common for large kissing configurations in higher dimensions, and in particular it fails for the best kissing configurations known in 25 through 31 dimensions. Motivated by this phenomenon, we find new kissing configurations in these dimensions, which improve on the records set in 1982 by the laminated lattices.Comment: 39 pages, 8 figure

On a generalization of distance sets

A subset $X$ in the $d$-dimensional Euclidean space is called a $k$-distance set if there are exactly $k$ distinct distances between two distinct points in $X$ and a subset $X$ is called a locally $k$-distance set if for any point $x$ in $X$, there are at most $k$ distinct distances between $x$ and other points in $X$. Delsarte, Goethals, and Seidel gave the Fisher type upper bound for the cardinalities of $k$-distance sets on a sphere in 1977. In the same way, we are able to give the same bound for locally $k$-distance sets on a sphere. In the first part of this paper, we prove that if $X$ is a locally $k$-distance set attaining the Fisher type upper bound, then determining a weight function $w$, $(X,w)$ is a tight weighted spherical $2k$-design. This result implies that locally $k$-distance sets attaining the Fisher type upper bound are $k$-distance sets. In the second part, we give a new absolute bound for the cardinalities of $k$-distance sets on a sphere. This upper bound is useful for $k$-distance sets for which the linear programming bound is not applicable. In the third part, we discuss about locally two-distance sets in Euclidean spaces. We give an upper bound for the cardinalities of locally two-distance sets in Euclidean spaces. Moreover, we prove that the existence of a spherical two-distance set in $(d-1)$-space which attains the Fisher type upper bound is equivalent to the existence of a locally two-distance set but not a two-distance set in $d$-space with more than $d(d+1)/2$ points. We also classify optimal (largest possible) locally two-distance sets for dimensions less than eight. In addition, we determine the maximum cardinalities of locally two-distance sets on a sphere for dimensions less than forty.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figur

A note on binary completely regular codes with large minimum distance

We classify all binary error correcting completely regular codes of length $n$ with minimum distance $\delta>n/2$.Comment: 4 page

Cubature formulas, geometrical designs, reproducing kernels, and Markov operators

Cubature formulas and geometrical designs are described in terms of reproducing kernels for Hilbert spaces of functions on the one hand, and Markov operators associated to orthogonal group representations on the other hand. In this way, several known results for spheres in Euclidean spaces, involving cubature formulas for polynomial functions and spherical designs, are shown to generalize to large classes of finite measure spaces $(\Omega,\sigma)$ and appropriate spaces of functions inside $L^2(\Omega,\sigma)$. The last section points out how spherical designs are related to a class of reflection groups which are (in general dense) subgroups of orthogonal groups