A new sphere packing in 20 dimensions (Q1895699)

The problem of constructing dense sphere packings in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) dates back to the famous Kepler conjecture in 1611 \((n = 3)\), reformulated by Hilbert in 1901 (18th Problem, part 3), and Gauß (proof for lattice packings, \(n = 3)\). Major progress for `medium' dimensions \((9 \leq n \leq 48)\) was made by Leech, Coxeter, Conway, Sloane, Todd, Best, Quebbemann et al. Now the author improves the best known bound for \(n = 20\) by using a method related to Construction \(B\) by Leech and Sloane. But his construction is not a laminated lattice -- it is a nonlattice packing. So the situation is similar to that for \(n = 10\), where also a non laminated packing is known to be denser than the one produced by the only laminated lattice. The proof uses suitable binary codes and techniques from coding theory.