Further improvements on asymptotic bounds for codes using distinguished divisors (Q2370632)

The largest asymptotic information rate for a given asymptotic relative minimum distance \(\delta\) of a \(q\)-ary code is denoted by \(\alpha_q(\delta)\); so \(\alpha_q(\delta):=\sup R\) for \(R:=\lim_{n\to \infty }\frac{\log_q| C_i| }{n(C_i)}\), where the supremum is taken over all sequences \((C_i)^\infty_{i=1}\) of (not necessarily linear) codes \(C_i\) over \(\text{GF}(q)\) such that \(n(C_i)\rightarrow\infty\) as \(i\rightarrow\infty\) and that \(\delta=\lim_{i\rightarrow\infty}\frac{d(C_i)}{n(C_i)}\) (for the word-length \(n(C_i)\) and the minimum distance \(d(C_i)\) of \(C_i)\). Lower bounds for \(\alpha_q(\delta)\) are the asymptotic Gilbert-Varshamov bound and the Tsfasman-Vlǎduţ-Zink bound [see \textit{M. A. Tsfasman, S. G. Vlǎduţ} and \textit{T. Zink}, Math. Nachr. 109, 21--28 (1982; Zbl 0574.94013)] which was improved by Elkies (2001), Xing (2003) and \textit{H. Niederreiter} and \textit{F. Özbudak} [Coding, cryptography and combinatorics. Basel: Birkhäuser. Progress in Computer Science and Applied Logic 23, 259--275 (2004; Zbl 1072.94017)]. The main aim of the present paper is the improvement of this last bound. This is achieved by a method using distinguished divisors of global function fields to refine the construction of codes of Xing. Examples show that the possible ranges of the parameter \(\delta\) are such that the new bound yields further improvements on the Gilbert-Varshamov bound and on the other bounds mentioned.