Line Hermitian Grassmann codes and their parameters (Q1747937)

If \(V\) is a vector space of finite dimension \(m\) over a finite field \({\mathbb F}_q\) with a fixed \(2\)-tensor, generalizing previous work in [\textit{J. Carrillo-Pacheco} and \textit{F. Zaldívar}, Des. Codes Cryptography 60, No. 3, 291--298 (2011; Zbl 1225.94028)], the authors have been systematically studying linear codes associated to subvarieties of the Grassmann variety given by isotropic subspaces of the vector space \(V\) with respect to a given symplectic or orthogonal tensor. In the paper under review, they consider the case when the finite field is of the form \({\mathbb F}_{q^2}\), for \(q\) a prime power, in which case it has the involution \(\sigma:{\mathbb F}_{q^2}\rightarrow {\mathbb F}_{q^2}\) given by \(\sigma(a)=a^q\), and thus they may assume that the vector space \(V\) has a nondegenerate \(\sigma\)-sesquilinear hermitian form \(\omega\) of Witt index \(n\), which implies that \(m=2n\) or \(m=2n+1\) and any totally isotropic subspace of \(V\) has dimension \(k \leq n\). For the Grassmannian \(\text{Gr}(k,V)\) embedded in the projective space \({\mathbb P}(\bigwedge^kV)\) by the Plücker map, the authors consider the \textit{Hermitian Grassmannian} subvariety \(H_{m,k}\subseteq \text{Gr}(k,V)\) consisting of all totally isotropic subspaces of dimension \(k\) of \(V\). Moreover, they further restrict their interest in this paper on the linear codes defined by the Hermitian varieties for \(k=2\), that is for the varieties \(H_{m,2}\). Their main result gives explicit formulas for the parameters of these codes: word length, dimension and minimum distance. Using Chow's theorem [\textit{W.-L. Chow}, Ann. of Math. (2) 50, 32--67 (1949; Zbl 0040.22901)] that characterizes the group of automorphisms of a Grassmann variety, the authors obtain the monomial automorphism group of the code associated to the Hermitian variety \(H_{m,2}\).