Codes and designs in Grassmannian spaces. (Q1426105)

The notion of \(t\)-design in a Grassmannian space \(G_{m,n}\) was introduced by \textit{C. Bachoc}, \textit{R. Coulangeon} and \textit{G. Nebe} [J. Algebr. Comb. 16, No. 1, 5--19 (2002; Zbl 1035.05027)]. In the present article, the authors give a general lower bound on the size of such a design. This leads them to the introduction of the notion of \(f\)-code in Grassmannian spaces, for which they obtain upper bounds, as well as a kind of duality tight-designs/tight-codes. These codes in the first Grassmannian \(G_{1,n} \) are in one-to-one correspondence with the antipodal codes of the unit sphere. Inspired by the work of \textit{P. Delsarte}, \textit{J. M. Goethals} and \textit{J. J. Seidel} [Geom. Dedicata 6, 363--388 (1977; Zbl 0376.05015)] on spherical designs, they establish these lower/upper bounds on the size of these designs/codes. This involves the use of the dimensions of some irreducible representations of the orthogonal group \(O(n)\).