The extended coset leader weight enumerator of a twisted cubic code (Q2168082)

The authors compute the extended coset leader weight enumerator of the generalised Reed-Solomon code of length \(q+1\) and co-dimension 4. The underlying projective system of these codes are normal rational curves (NRC), and the computation of the weight enumerator is related to the orbits on subspaces under the action of the projective group stabilising the NRC. If this NRC is a conic, then the weight enumerator is known (and easy to compute). The main result of the paper concerns the case in which the NRC is a twisted cubic \(C_3\) (\(d=3\)). The determination of the above mentioned weight enumerator depends on the number of points in \({\mathbb{P}}^3(q^m)\) which have rank \(3\) with respect to the \(C_3(q)\); this number is denoted by \(a_3(q^m)\). The authors first show that \(a_3(q^m)\) can be expressed in terms of the parameter \(\mu_q\), which is the number of lines of \(\mathbb{P}^3(q)\), of rank 3 with respect to \(C_3(q)\), i.e. lines which are not real chords, but lie in at least one plane spanned by points of \(C_3(q)\). The result would follow from the classification of the line-orbits, but such a classification is, at the time of the writing, not known. The point-orbits and the plane-orbits are known, and the lines are naturally divided into a several classes which are union of orbits. The class of lines which remains to be classified is known as the class \(O_6\). There have been several recent papers on this topic by disjoint sets of authors (cited in the paper under review) and it seems that a complete classification is within reach. However, the authors are able to determine \(\mu_q\) (and therefore also \(a_3(q^m)\)) without the classification of line-orbits. The formula for \(\mu_q\) can be obtained from Proposition 8.4 (see Theorem 8.7) and depends on the value of \(q\) modulo 6. The proof is based on a one-to-one correspondence between subspaces of co-dimension two in \({\mathbb{P}}^d\) and certain equivalence classes of rational functions of degree \(d\) on \({\mathbb{P}}^1\). For each line-orbit, the authors give a corresponding rational function, its base divisor, and the ramification divisor \(R_{\tilde{\varphi}}\) and different divisor \(D_{\tilde{\varphi}}\) of the associated morphism \(\tilde{\varphi}\) (Theorem 8.1). The paper is a mixture of algebraic geometry, finite geometry, coding theory, and combinatorics.