Computing linear codes and unitals (Q1379659): Difference between revisions

A unital on \(q^3+1\) points is a 2-\((q^3+1,q+1,1)\) design. The Ree unital \(R(q)\) on \(q^3+1\) points for \(q=3^{2m+1}\), \(m\geq 0\) is a design invariant under the Ree group. In 1981, Andries Brouwer constructed 138 nonisomorphic 2-\((28,42,1)\) designs and made the conjecture that the Ree unital \(R(3)\) is characterized by the fact that its binary code has dimension 19, that is, the 2-rank of its incidence matrix being 19. Brouwer also noticed that the 2-rank of any other known unital, including the hermitian unital \(H(3)\), was 21 or larger. Brouwer's conjecture was proved recently by McGuire, Tonchev and Ward. More precisely, the 2-rank of any unital on 28 points is greater than or equal to 19, and the Ree unital \(R(3)\) is the only (up to isomorphism) example of rank 19. In addition, the 2-rank of any unital on 28 points without ovals (sets of ten points that meet each block in at most two points) is greater than or equal to 21, with equality if and only if the design is isomorphic to the hermitian unital \(H(3)\). It is the aim of this paper to demonstrate the non-existence of any unitals on 28 points of 2-rank 20, and to show that in addition to the classical hermitian unital \(H(3)\), there are exactly more nonisomorphic unitals of 2-rank 21. As a result of the search, only two \([28,8]\) codes were found that contain unitals in their dual codes, all unitals being of 2-rank 19, hence isomorphic to the Ree unital \(R(3)\). In the case of rank 21, there are eight \([28,7]\) codes whose dual code contains unitals. Four of these codes do contain unitals of 2-rank 21, while the remaining codes contain only unitals of rank 19.