On dual toric complete intersection codes (Q2011487)

Let \({\mathbb F}_q\) be a finite field and consider Laurent polynomials \(f_1,\ldots, f_{\ell}\in {\mathbb F}_q[ t_1^{\pm 1},\ldots, t_{\ell}^{\pm 1}]\), with given Newton polytopes \(P_1,\ldots,P_{\ell}\subseteq {\mathbb R}^{\ell}\), and the set \(S=Z(f_1,\ldots,f_{\ell})\subseteq ({\mathbb F}_q^*)^{\ell}\) of common zeros of the \(f_i\). With certain conditions, the set \(S\) is the intersection of \(\ell\) hypersurfaces in the toric variety associated to the polytope defined by the Minkowski sum \(P:=P_1+\cdots+P_{\ell}\) of the given Newton polytopes. For each subset \(A\) of the interior \(P^{\circ}\) of the polytope \(P\), consider the finite dimensional Riemann-Roch vector subspace \({\mathcal L}(A)\subseteq {\mathbb F}_q[ t_1^{\pm 1},\ldots, t_{\ell}^{\pm 1}]\) generated by the monomials \(t_1^{a_1}\cdots t_{\ell}^{a_{\ell}}\), for \((a_1,\ldots, a_{\ell})\in A\cap {\mathbb Z}^{\ell}\) lattice points in \(A\). Toric complete intersection codes, introduced by [\textit{I. Soprunov}, J. Symb. Comput. 50, 374--385; (2013; Zbl 1261.14014)], are evaluation codes \(C_{S,A}\) obtained by evaluating the Laurent polynomials of \({\mathcal L}(A)\) on the finite set \(S\). For the class of these codes there is a generalization of the notions of orthogonality and duality. Indeed, a fixed vector \(y=(y_1,\ldots,y_{\ell})\in \big({\mathbb F}_q^*\big)^n\) defines a dot product on \({\mathbb F}_q^n\) as \((u\cdot v)_y:=\sum_{i=1}^ny_iu_iv_i\), which recovers the usual dot product when \(y=(1,\ldots,1)\). Using this \(y\)-dot product, a linear code \(C\) over \({\mathbb F}_q\) is called \textit{quasi-self dual}, if its \(y\)-orthogonal \(C^{\perp y}\) is equal to \(C\). The main result of the paper under review, Theorem 3.3, gives conditions on the set of lattice points \(A\) and the Newton polytopes \(P_1,\ldots, P_{\ell}\), that guarantee that the toric complete intersection code \(C_{S,A}\) is quasi-self dual. Moreover, for \(\ell=2\), the authors obtain a combinatorial formula, in Proposition 4.3 and Theorem 4.5, for the dimension of the code \(C_{S,A}\). As a consequence, they obtain combinatorial conditions for the code to be quasi-self dual in Proposition 4.6 and Theorem 4.9. The last section of the paper provides and algorithm for finding dual and quasi-self dual toric complete intersection codes for \(\ell=2\), with a few examples over the field \({\mathbb F}_{16}\).