On the Algebraic Structure of Quasi Group Codes 1
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ON THE ALGEBRAIC STRUCTURE OF QUASI GROUP CODES MARTINO BORELLO AND WOLFGANG WILLEMS Abstract. In this note, an intrinsic description of some families of linear codes with symmetries is given, showing that they can be described more generally as quasi group codes, that is as linear codes with a free group of permutation automorphisms. An algebraic description, including the concatenated structure, of such codes is presented. Finally, self-duality of quasi group codes is investigated. 1. Introduction In the theory of error correcting codes, the linear ones play a central role for their algebraic properties which allow, for example, their easy description and storage. Quite early in their study, it appeared convenient to add additional algebraic structure in order to get more information about the parameters and to facilitate the decoding process. In 1957, E. Prange introduced the now well- known class of cyclic codes [18], which are the forefathers of many other families of codes with symmetries introduced later. In particular, abelian codes [2], group codes [15], quasi-cyclic codes [9] and quasi-abelian codes [19] are distinguished descendants of cyclic codes: they have a nice algebraic structure and many optimal codes belong to these families. The aim of the current note is to give an intrinsic description of these classes in terms of their permutation automorphism groups: we will show that all of them have a free group of permutation automorphisms (which is not necessarily the full permutation automorphism group of the code). We will define a code with this property as a quasi group code. So all families cited above can be described in this way. Note that quasi group codes (over Frobenius rings) has been introduced also in a recent paper by S. Dougherty et al. [10]. As it turns out very easily from our description, the families of quasi group codes, quasi-abelian codes and quasi-cyclic codes coincide. Anyway, we give the most general algebraic description (Theorem 4.1) for quasi group codes describing their concatenated structure (Theorem 4.2) without any restriction on the group acting on. Also no assumption on semi-simplicity (unlike in previous papers on the subject) is needed. In the last part of the paper, we deal with self-duality of quasi group codes, proving a necessary and sufficient condition on their underlying field and index for their existence. 2. Background We collect in this section preliminaries which are crucial in the subsequent sections. Let K be a finite field of cardinality q. A linear code C of length n is a subspace of Kn. An element c = (c1,...,cn)∈C is called a codeword and its (Hamming) weight is given by wt(c) ∶= S{i ∈ {1,...,n} S ci ≠ 0}S The minimum distance of C is defined by d(C) ∶= minc∈C∖{0} wt(c). An n,k,d q code is a linear code of length n, dimension k and minimum distance d over a field of[ cardinality] q. These are usually called the parameters of the code. M. Borello is with LAGA, UMR 7539, CNRS, Universit´eParis 13 - Sorbonne Paris Cit´e, Universit´eParis 8, F-93526, Saint-Denis, France. W. Willems is with Otto-von-Guericke Universit¨at, Magdeburg, Germany and Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia. 1 2 MARTINOBORELLOANDWOLFGANGWILLEMS There is a standard way of combining codes to obtain a code of larger length. To describe this process, let K ⊆ L be a field extension, m be an integer greater than or equal to L ∶ K and π ∶ L → Km be a K-linear injection. In the concatenation process, L-linear codes in L[n are called] outer codes and the K-linear code I ∶= π L is called inner code. The K-linear code ( ) n⋅m I ◻π C ∶= π c1 ,...,π cn c1,...,cn ∈C ⊆ K {( ( ) ( )) S ( ) } is the concatenation of C with I by π, or simply the concatenated code. This construction obviously depends on the choice of π, but there are some properties that do not depend on π. For example, the length of I ◻π C is n ⋅ m, the dimension over K of I ◻π C is the product dimK I ⋅dimL C and we have the bound d I ◻π C ≥ d I ⋅d C (see for example [11]). ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) There are some natural group actions associated to linear codes. The symmetric group Sn acts on the coordinates 1,...,n by definition. This action induces an action on the elements of Kn, n { } namely for v ∈ K and σ ∈ Sn we have σ v ∶= vσ−1 1 ,vσ−1 2 ,...,vσ−1 n . ( ( ) ( ) ( )) This action induces an action on subsets (and in particular on linear codes). For C ⊆ Kn we put Cσ ∶= cσ c ∈C . { S } σ An element σ ∈ Sn is an automorphism of C if C =C. The stabilizer σ PAut C ∶= σ ∈ Sn C =C ( ) { S } is called the permutation automorphism group of C. Moreover, a linear code C1 is equivalent or ( ) better permutation equivalent to a linear code C2 (and we denote that by C1 C2) if there exists σ ∼ σ Sn such that C1 =C2. This is not the most general definition of equivalence but it is sufficient for∈ the purpose of this note. It is easy to see that PAut Cσ = PAut C σ (the conjugate of PAut C ( ) ( ) ( ) in Sn by σ). From group theory we recall that a (right) action of a group G on a set X is called ● transitive if X ≠ ∅ and for all x,y ∈ X there exists g ∈ G such that xg = y; ● free if xg = x for some x ∈ X and g ∈ G, then g is the unit in G; ● regular if it is both transitive and free. In the case that the group G is finite and acts freely, it immediately follows from the definition that all orbits of G have cardinality G . In particular, G divides X . Moreover, if G is regular, then G = X . S S S S S S S S S S A subgroup H of the symmetric group Sn is called transitive (free, resp. regular) if the restriction to H of the action of Sn on the coordinates 1,...,n is transitive (free, resp. regular). { } Finally, given a group G and a field K, the group algebra KG is the set of formal sums ⎧ R ⎫ KG ∶= ⎪a = Q agg R ag ∈ K⎪ , ⎨ R ⎬ ⎪ g∈G R ⎪ ⎩⎪ R ⎭⎪ which is a K-vector space in a natural way and which becomes a K-algebra via the multiplication ab ∶= Q Q ahbh−1g g, g∈G h∈G for a = Q agg and b = Q bgg. g∈G g∈G ONTHEALGEBRAICSTRUCTUREOFQUASIGROUPCODES 3 3. Codes with a free group of symmetries Let G be a finite group of cardinality n and let K be a finite field. Recall that the group algebra KG is isomorphic to Kn as a K-vector space, where n = G . There is a standard way of constructing such an isomorphism, which allows us to transfer manyS codingS theoretical properties from Kn to KG. Once an ordering g1,...,gn of the elements of G is chosen, we may define ϕ ∶ gi ↦ ei, where n e1,...,en is the standard basis of K . Then we extend this map K-linearly so that { } n (1) ϕ ∶ Q aigi ↦ a1,...,an . i=1 ( ) The isomorphism ϕ obtained is not canonical, since it depends on the ordering of the group, but different orderings lead only to a permutation of the coordinates. Via the isomorphism ϕ, we can transfer the Hamming metric from Kn to KG. For a ∈ KG, we define wt a ∶= wt ϕ a . So, from a coding theoretical point of view, we can consider linear codes either in (KG) or in( K( n))without any difference. However, the algebraic structure of KG allows us to consider codes with more structure than linearity. Definition 3.1 ([2, 15]). A G-code (or a group code) is a right ideal C in the group algebra KG. If the group G is abelian, then the code C is called an abelian code. A particular and well-known class of abelian codes is the family of cyclic codes. If G is cyclic, i hence generated by a certain g ∈ G, and the isomorphism ϕ sends g → ei+1 for all i ∈ 0,...,n − 1 , then ϕ C is cyclic. In fact, in this case KG ≅ K x xn − 1 via the isomorphism {g ↦ x. Thus,} a cyclic( code) turns out to be an ideal in the factor[ ]~( algebra K) x xn − 1 , which is the classical definition. [ ]~( ) Now let C be a G-code. Observe that on G the right multiplication by one of its elements, say g, induces a permutation σg ∈ Sn defined by (2) σg i = j iff gig = gj. ( ) Note that g ↦ σg is a faithful permutation representation of G, which again depends on the chosen ordering of G. If this last map coincides with that chosen for ϕ, then σ G ∶= σg g ∈ G is a subgroup of PAut ϕ C . This is due to the fact that a right ideal is stable( ) by multipli{ S cation} on the right. Since the( action( )) of right multiplication is regular, the group σ G is regular. ( ) Suppose that C is a linear code in Kn admitting a regular subgroup G of PAut C . Since G is a group of automorphisms, C becomes a right KG-module via the action ( ) g (3) c ⋅ ⎛ Q agg⎞ ∶= Q agc ∈ ∈ ⎝g G ⎠ g G for c ∈C and ag ∈ K. Moreover, as every regular action of G is isomorphic to the action of G on itself given by right multiplication, there is an ordering of G such that ϕ−1 C is a G-code in KG.