On the weights of trace codes (Q4027650)

[For the entire collection see Zbl 0745.00062.] Let \(C\) be a linear code of length \(n\) over the field \(GF(q^ m)\) (where \(q\) is a power of some prime \(p\)) and \(\text{tr}: GF(q^ m)\to GF(q)\) denote the trace map, i.e. \(\text{tr}(\gamma)=\gamma+\gamma^ q+\cdots+\gamma^{q^{m-1}}\) for \(\gamma\in GF(q^ m)\). We define the trace code of \(C\) to be \[ \text{tr}(C)=\bigl\{(\text{tr}(\gamma_ 1),\dots,\text{tr}(\gamma_ n))\in GF(q)^ n\mid(\gamma_ 1,\dots,\gamma_ n)\in C\bigr\}. \] Clearly, \(\text{tr}(C)\) is a linear code of length \(n\) over \(GF(q)\). Many interesting codes over \(GF(q)\) can be represented as trace codes. For example, the dual code of a subfield subcode is always a trace code (Delsarte's theorem). In particular, the duals of BCH codes can be considered as trace codes. By using the Hasse-Weil-Serre bound for the number of rational places of algebraic function fields over \(GF(q^ m)\) we obtain an estimate for the weights of codewords in \(\text{tr}(C)\) for a large class of trace codes.