Codes over a weighted torus (Q2011482)

For a finite field \({\mathbb F}_q\), projective Reed-Muller codes, [\textit{G. Lachaud}, Discrete Math. 81, No. 2, 217--221 (1990; Zbl 0696.94015)], are the images of an arbitrary subset \(X\subseteq {\mathbb P}^s\) under the degree \(d\) homogeneous component of the polynomial ring \({\mathbb F}_q[x_0,\ldots,x_s]\). Now, if \(w_0,\ldots,w_s\) are positive coprime integers and we let \({\mathbb F}_q^*\) act on \({\mathbb F}_q^{s+1}-\{0\}\) by \(\lambda(a_0,\ldots,a_s)=(\lambda^{w_0}a_0,\ldots, \lambda^{w_s}a_s)\), the weighted projective space over \({\mathbb F}_q\), with weights \(w_0,\ldots,w_s\), is the quotient \({\mathbb P}(w_0,\ldots,w_s)=\big({\mathbb F}_q^{s+1}-\{0\}\big)/{\mathbb F}_q^*\). Thus, the coordinate ring of \({\mathbb P}(w_0,\ldots,w_s)\) is the weighted polynomial ring \({\mathbb F}_q[x_0,\ldots,x_s]\) with grading \(\deg(x_i)=w_i\). In this paper, the authors introduce the notion of a \textit{weighted projective Reed-Muller code} \(C_X(d)\) as the image of a subset \(X\subseteq {\mathbb P}(w_0,\ldots,w_s)\) of the evaluation map \({\mathbb F}_q[x_0,\ldots,x_s]_d\rightarrow {\mathbb F}_q^n\) of the degree \(d\) homogeneous polynomials on the \(n=|X|\) points of \(X\), with a chosen order. The problem of determining the basic parameters, length, dimension and minimum distance, of these weighted projective Reed-Muller codes depends on obtaining certain properties of the vanishing ideal \(I_X\subseteq {\mathbb F}_q[x_0,\ldots,x_s]\) of the set \(X\). Since in the classical case, that is, when \(w_i=1\) for all \(0\leq i\leq s\), the projective Reed-Muller codes that are somehow well understood correspond to sets \(X\) of \({\mathbb F}_q\)-rational points of some projective varieties, one may reasonably expect that this will the case for a general weighted projective Reed--Muller code. The authors focus on the case when the set \(X\subseteq {\mathbb P}(w_0,\ldots,w_s)\) is a \textit{weighted projective torus}, that is the set \({\mathbb T}={\mathbb T}(w_0,\ldots,w_s)=\{(a_0,\ldots,a_s)\in {\mathbb P}(w_0,\ldots,w_s): a_0\cdots a_s\neq 0\}\), since in this instance, following [\textit{C. Rentería} et al., Finite Fields Appl. 17, No. 1, 81--104 (2011; Zbl 1209.13037)] and [\textit{J. Herzog}, Manuscr. Math. 3, 175--193 (1970; Zbl 0211.33801)], the authors can prove that the vanishing ideal \(I_{\mathbb T}\) of the weighted torus is a lattice ideal which can be obtained from the lattice ideal of a minimal presentation of the semigroup algebra of the numerical semigroup of weights \(Q=\langle w_0,\ldots,w_s\rangle\subseteq {\mathbb N}\). From this information, the authors compute the Hilbert series of the algebra \({\mathbb F}_q[x_0,\ldots,x_s]/I_{\mathbb T}\) and its index of regularity in terms of the weights and the Frobenius number of \(Q\). A direct calculation shows that the length of the corresponding weighted projective Reed-Muller code \(C_{\mathbb T}(d)\) is \((q-1)^s\) but the other parameters are not so easily determined. In the last section of the paper, the authors consider the example of a one-dimensional projective weighted torus \({\mathbb T}={\mathbb T}(w_0,w_1)\) and using the information given by the Hilbert series and index of regularity of the vanishing ideal, they compute the dimension and minimum distance of the corresponding weighted projective Reed-Muller code \(C_{\mathbb T}(d)\), in particular, they show that these are maximum distance separable codes.