Maximum Weight Spectrum Codes

In the recent work \cite{shi18}, a combinatorial problem concerning linear codes over a finite field \F_q was introduced. In that work the authors studied the weight set of an $[n,k]_q$ linear code, that is the set of non-zero distinct Hamming weights, showing that its cardinality is upper bounded by $\frac{q^k-1}{q-1}$. They showed that this bound was sharp in the case $q=2$, and in the case $k=2$. They conjectured that the bound is sharp for every prime power $q$ and every positive integer $k$. In this work quickly establish the truth of this conjecture. We provide two proofs, each employing different construction techniques. The first relies on the geometric view of linear codes as systems of projective points. The second approach is purely algebraic. We establish some lower bounds on the length of codes that satisfy the conjecture, and the length of the new codes constructed here are discussed.Comment: 19 page

A proof of the Etzion-Silberstein conjecture for monotone and MDS-constructible Ferrers diagrams

Ferrers diagram rank-metric codes were introduced by Etzion and Silberstein in 2009. In their work, they proposed a conjecture on the largest dimension of a space of matrices over a finite field whose nonzero elements are supported on a given Ferrers diagram and all have rank lower bounded by a fixed positive integer $d$. Since stated, the Etzion-Silberstein conjecture has been verified in a number of cases, often requiring additional constraints on the field size or on the minimum rank $d$ in dependence of the corresponding Ferrers diagram. As of today, this conjecture still remains widely open. Using modular methods, we give a constructive proof of the Etzion-Silberstein conjecture for the class of strictly monotone Ferrers diagrams, which does not depend on the minimum rank $d$ and holds over every finite field. In addition, we leverage on the last result to also prove the conjecture for the class of MDS-constructible Ferrers diagrams, without requiring any restriction on the field size.Comment: 21 page