Quaternary Golay sequence pairs. I: Even length (Q2430710)

For an even \(H\) let \(\xi\) be a complex primitive \(H\)-th root of unity and \(S= \{1,\xi,\ldots,\xi^{H-1}\}\). An \(H\)-phase Golay sequence pair of length \(s\) is a pair of sequences \(A, B\) of length \(s\) over the alphabet \(S\) such that \(C_A(u) + C_B(u) = 0\) for all \(u\neq 0\), where \(C_A(u)\) denotes the aperiodic autocorrelation \(C_A(u) := \sum_{j=0}^{s-1-u}A[j]\overline{A[j+u]}\) for an integer \(0\leq u\leq s-1\), when \(A[j]\) denotes the \(j\)-th term of the sequence \(A\). The \(2\)-phase Golay sequence pairs of length less than \(100\) are counted and characterized in [\textit{P. B. Borwein} and \textit{R. A. Ferguson}, Math. Comput. 73, No. 246, 976--985 (2004; Zbl 1052.11019)]. In this article the authors count and explain the origin of all \(4\)-phase (quaternary) Golay sequence pairs of even length at most \(26\). For this purpose they use the ``three-stage construction'' of \textit{F. Fiedler}, \textit{J. Jedwab} and \textit{M. G. Parker} [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 115, No. 5, 753--776 (2008; Zbl 1154.05012)] and a ``sum-difference construction'' due to \textit{S. Eliahou}, \textit{M. Kervaire} and \textit{B. Saffari} [Adv. Appl. Math. 12, No. 3, 235--292 (1991; Zbl 0767.05004)]. For their results the authors assume quaternary Golay sequence pairs of odd lengths \(3,5,11\) and \(13\), which are considered in Part II [the authors, Des. Codes Cryptography 59, No. 1--3, 147--157 (2011; Zbl 1233.94014)].