Blocking sets in finite projective spaces and uneven binary codes (Q1182740)

This paper improves a result of \textit{A. Beutelspacher} [Geom. Dedicata 9, 425-449 (1980; Zbl 0377.50007)] on \(t\)-blocking sets of \(\text{PG}(d,q)\) in the case that \(q=2\). A \(t\)-blocking set \(B\) of \(\text{PG}(d,q)\) is a subset meeting every \((d-t)\)-space but containing no \(t\)-space. The result was that \[ q^ t+q^{t-1}+\ldots +1+q^{t-1}\sqrt{q}\leq| B|\leq q^ d+q^{d-1}+\ldots+a^{d-t-1}\sqrt{q}, \] which become \(5\leq| B|\leq (8-2\sqrt{2})2^{d-3}\) when \(t=1\) and \(q=2\). By making a connection to binary codes via the parity check matrix of a code, the author improves the result to \(5\leq | B|\leq 5.2^{d- 3}\) with the converse included; namely, there exists a 1-blocking set \(B\) of \(\text{PG}(d,2)\) when \(| B|\) satisfies these bounds.