Doubly even extremal codes of length 64 (Q1092006)

An (n,k,d) code over the finite field F is a k-dimensional linear subspace of \(F^ n\) with Hamming distance between any pair of distinct vectors at least d. The code C is self-dual if it is equal to its dual code, \(C^{\bot}=\{v\in F^ n\), \((u,v)=0\), \(\forall u\in C\}\). It is called doubly even if the weight of each codeword is divisible by 4. For a doubly even self dual code the distance d satisfies the bound \(d\leq 4\lfloor n/24\rfloor +4\) and if equality is achieved the code is called extremal. Two codes of length n are called equivalent if there exists a permutation action on the coordinate positions, that maps the codewords of one onto those of the other. The group of all permutations that preserves the code C, Aut(C), is a subgroup of the symmetric group \(S_ n\). It is shown here that there are exactly 38 inequivalent doubly even extremal self-dual codes of length 64 with an automorphism of order 31.