Evaluation codes and their basic parameters (Q2227126)

Let \(K=GF(q)\) denote the finite field with \(q\) elements, where \(q\) is a prime power, and let \(S=K[t_1,\dots,t_s]\) be the polynomial ring associated with the affine space \({\mathbb{A}}^s\). If \(X=\{P_1,\dots,P_m\}\subset {\mathbb{A}}^s\) is a finite set of points then we can define a \(K\)-linear evaluation map \[ mathrm{ev}_X:S\to K^m, \ \ mathrm{ev}_X(f)=(f(P_1),\dots,f(P_m)). \] If \(L\subset S\) is a finite dimensional space then its image under \(mathrm{ev}_X\), \(L_X=mathrm{ev}_X(L)\), is called an \textit{evaluation code} on \(X\). In the paper under review, the authors study the basic parameters of the family of evaluation codes and those of certain interesting subfamilies. The parameters investigated are (a) the length \(|X|\), (b) the dimension \(\dim_K(L_X)\), (c) the generalized Hamming weights \(\delta_r(L_X)\), \(1\leq r \leq \dim_K(L_X)\). The first main result of the authors is a formula for \(\delta_r(L_X)\) in terms of ring-theoretic data involving \(S\), the vanishing ideal of \(X\) and related ideals. The second main result is a lower bound for the \(\delta_r(L_X)\) in terms of what they call the footprint of \(L_X\), a quantity expressed in terms of ring-theoretic data. These two results are applied to toric codes and to ``squarefree'' evaluation codes, when \(X\) is taken to be the set of all \(K\)-rational points of the affine torus. For those families of codes, the authors obtain explicit formulas for both the minimum distance (namely, \(\delta_1(L_X)\)) and the second generalized Hamming weight \(\delta_2(L_X)\). The exact statements are too technical to state in this review, so the reader is referred to the paper for details.