Two-point coordinate rings for GK-curves

Giulietti and Korchm\'aros presented new curves with the maximal number of points over a field of size q^6. Garcia, G\"uneri, and Stichtenoth extended the construction to curves that are maximal over fields of size q^2n, for odd n >= 3. The generalized GK-curves have affine equations x^q+x = y^{q+1} and y^{q^2}-y^q = z^r, for r=(q^n+1)/(q+1). We give a new proof for the maximality of the generalized GK-curves and we outline methods to efficiently obtain their two-point coordinate ring.Comment: 16 page

Distance bounds for algebraic geometric codes

Various methods have been used to obtain improvements of the Goppa lower bound for the minimum distance of an algebraic geometric code. The main methods divide into two categories and all but a few of the known bounds are special cases of either the Lundell-McCullough floor bound or the Beelen order bound. The exceptions are recent improvements of the floor bound by Guneri-Stichtenoth-Taskin, and Duursma-Park, and of the order bound by Duursma-Park and Duursma-Kirov. In this paper we provide short proofs for all floor bounds and most order bounds in the setting of the van Lint and Wilson AB method. Moreover, we formulate unifying theorems for order bounds and formulate the DP and DK order bounds as natural but different generalizations of the Feng-Rao bound for one-point codes.Comment: 29 page