Riemann-Roch spaces of the Hermitian function field with applications to algebraic geometry codes and low-discrepancy sequences (Q1764820)

Being able to explicitly determine a basis of the Riemann-Roch space associated with a divisor \(D\) on a curve \({\mathcal C}\) is extremely important for constructing and decoding algebraic geometric codes. Let \(G\) be a divisor on a curve \(C\) such that the dimension of the associated Riemann-Roch space \(L(G)\) is at least \(1\). In the first part of the paper under review, the authors introduce the notion of the floor of \(G\) as a divisor \(G'\) of minimum degree such that \(L(G)=L(G')\) and provide an algorithm to compute such divisor starting from \(G\). Then, the divisor \(G'\) is used to improve the estimate on the minimum distance of any algebraic-geometric code \(C(G,D)\), by replacing \(d\geq n-\deg G\) with \(d\geq n-\deg G'\). The second part of the paper is focused on the hermitian function field with defining equation \(H:y^q+y=x^{q+1}\) and on determining explicit bases for large classes of Riemann--Roch spaces of this field. In particular, the authors investigate divisors of the form \( G=rQ_{\infty}+\sum_{\beta\in K_{\alpha}} k_{\beta}P_{\alpha,\beta}, \) where \(Q_{\infty}\) is the common pole of the functions \(x\) and \(y\); \(r\) and \(k_{\beta}\) are integers; \(K_{\alpha}=\{\beta:\beta^q+\beta=\alpha^{q+1}\}\) and \(P_{\alpha,\beta}\) is the unique place of \(H\) of degree \(1\) with \(x(P_{\alpha,\beta})=\alpha\) and \(y(P_{\alpha,\beta})=\beta\). In the final part of the paper, the results obtained about the hermitian function field are used in order to show how construct with a fast implementation low--discrepancy sequences.