A new approach to the main conjecture on algebraic-geometric MDS codes (Q1924178)

A \([n,k,d]\) linear code is said to be MDS if \(d=n-k+1\). The ``Main conjecture on MDS codes'' states that for every MDS code over the field of order \(q\), if \(1<k<q\), then \(n\leq q+1\), except when \(q\) is even and \(k=3\) or \(k=q-1\), in which cases \(n\leq q+2\). This conjecture had already been proved for algebraic-geometric codes based on elliptic curves, and also hyperelliptic curves in the case of a large ground field. The method used the arithmetic of the Jacobian of the curve. This paper present a new approach for proving the main conjecture in case of algebraic-geometric codes based on elliptic curves. The approach proposed in this paper is related to the intrinsic geometry of the curve. Such an approach had already been used for proving the above conjecture by Ali, Hirschfeld and Kaneta, and Chao and Kaneta, for \(k\geq 5\) or \(q\leq 19\). The paper extends the proof to any \(q\geq 20\) and \(k\geq 6\). First the conjecture is explained in terms of cardinality of an hyperplane section of a curve. The second step consists in specifying that elliptic curves with sufficiently large degree \(n+1\) over a large field has an hyperplane section of cardinality at least \(n+1\). It is based upon an idea of Munuera. The proof of the conjecture for codes based on elliptic curves is thus a straightforward consequence.