A complete classification of ternary self-dual codes of length 24 (Q1024993)

Self-dual error correcting codes have very nice properties and have been widely studied, in particular over the fields \(\mathbb{F}_q\), \(q=2,3,4\), see [\textit{E.M. Rains} and \textit{N.J.A. Sloane}, Handbook of coding theory. Vol. 1. Part 1: Algebraic coding. Vol. 2. Part 2: Connections, Part 3: Applications. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 177--294 (1998, Zbl 0936.94017)]. For \(q=3\)\, the present paper gives the complete classification of self-dual codes of length 24. Ternary self-dual codes of length up to 20 have been previously classified. At the next value 24 (the length must verify \(n\equiv 0 \bmod 4\)) the possible minimum distances are \(d=3,6,9\). \textit{J. S. Leon, V. Pless} and \textit{N.J.A. Sloane} [IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory 27, 176--180 (1981; Zbl 0458.94040)] showed that (up to equivalence) there are two such codes with \(d=9\). Here the authors complete the classification proving (theorem 1) that, up to equivalence, there are 156 ternary self-dual codes with \(d=6\)\, and 170 codes with \(d=3\). To prove theorem 1 the authors study the 24-dimensional odd unimodular lattices. Every ternary self-dual code of length \(n\) can be obtained from a 3-frame of some \(n\)-dimensional unimodular lattice \(L\) (a 3-frame is a set of vectors \(v_i\in L, i=1,\dots, n\), such that \(v_i\cdot v_j=3\delta_{ij}\)). For \(n=24\)\, the 3-frames correspond to the 24-cliques in an associated graph \(\Gamma\)\, and the paper obtains the wanted classification finding a set of representatives of 24-cliques of \(\Gamma\)\, up to the action of the group Aut\((L)\). Details are provided in Section 4 for distance \(d=6\)\, and Section 5 for \(d=3\). All computations were done using the package MAGMA.