Non-minimum tensor rank Gabidulin codes (Q2154304)

Generalized Gabidulin codes \(C\) are a special class of rank-metric codes, i.e. codes that are associated to a slice space \(L=L(T_C)\) of a 3-tensor \(T_C\) over a finite field \(\mathbb F_q\). Among rank-metric codes, the Gabidulin codes are associated to \(\mathbb F_{q^n}\)-subspaces generated by \(x,x^{q^s},\dots,x^{q^{s(k-1)}}\), for integers \(k,s\) with \(1\leq k\leq n\) and \(gcd(s,n)=1\), and for \(x\in \mathbb F_q^k\times\mathbb F_q^k\). The determination of the tensor rank of rank-metric codes \(C\) is important as it provides a measure of efficiency: codes with associated tensors of small rank provide a more efficient encoding. As a consequence of some uniqueness criteria on tensor decomposition, there is a lower bound for the rank of rank-metric codes. The authors provide a computation for the rank of tensors associated to some Gabidulin codes. In particular, they prove that the rank of a generalized Gabidulin code of dimension \(8\) over \(\mathbb F_q^4\times\mathbb F_q^4\) is \(12\) for \(q=2\), and it is \(11\) if \(q>2\). Then, it turns out that these generalized Gabidulin codes are not rank-metric codes of minimal rank.