Symmetric rank codes (Q2388475)

As is well known, a finite field \(K_n = \text{GF}(q^n)\) can be described in terms of \(n \times n\) matrices \(A\) over the field \(K = \text{GF}(q)\) such that their powers \(A^i\), \(i=1,2,\dots,q^n-1\), correspond to all nonzero elements of the field. It is proved that, for fields \(K_n\) of characteristic 2, such a matrix \(A\) can be chosen to be symmetric. In this article, the authors give some construction of field-representing symmetric matrices. These matrices together with the all-zero matrices can be considered as a \(K^n\)-linear matrix code in the rank metric with maximum rank distance \(d=n\) and maximum possible cardinality \(q^n\) (symmetric rank codes). In the vector representation, such codes are maximum rank distance (MRD) linear \([n,1,n]\) codes. The authors propose an algorithm of erasure symmetrization for symmetric codes, which considerably reduces the decoding complexity as compared with standard algorithms. Also, the authors show that a linear \([n,k,n-k+1]\) MRD code containing the above-mentioned one-dimensional symmetric code as a subcode has the following property: the corresponding transposed code is also \(K_n\)-linear. Such codes have an extended capability of correcting symmetric errors and erasures.