Linear codes, strata of Grassmannians, and the problems of Segre (Q4027652)

[For the entire collection see Zbl 0745.20062.] Linear codes of length \(n\) and dimension \(k\) over a finite field \(F\) are in one-to-one correspondence with the \(F\)-points of the Grassmannian \(G(k,n)\). Define \(V_ I= \{x\in F^ n\mid c_ i=0\) for all \(i\not\in I\}\) for a subset \(I\) of \(I_ n= \{1,\dots, n\}\). For every function \(f\) from the subsets of \(I_ n\) to the non-negative integers there is a constructible algebraic set \(U_ f(k,n)\) of all \(k\)-dimensional subspaces \(C\) of \(F^ n\) such that \(\dim(C\cap V_ I)= f(I)\) for all subsets \(I\). This gives a stratification of \(G(k,n)\) by the \(U_ f(k,n)\). The general study of these strata seems very difficult. Two codes \(C_ 1\) and \(C_ 2\) are called combinatorially equivalent if \(\dim(C_ 1\cap V_ I)= \dim(C_ 2\cap V_ I)\) for all subsets \(I\) of \(I_ n\). Two codes are combinatorially equivalent if and only if the set of minimal elements of supports of nonzero codewords are the same. The weight enumerator of \(C\) depends only on its combinatorial equivalence class. There is a unique Zariski open dense set \(U(k,n)= U_ s(k,n)\), where \(s(I)= \max\{ 0,k+ \#I-n\}\), which parametrizes the MDS codes. The number of elements of the \(GF(p^ s)\)-points of \(U(k,n)\) is denoted by \(f_{k,n,p} (s)\). The functions \(f_{n,2,p}\), \(f_{6,3,p}\) and \(f_{7,3,p}\) are computed; in the first two cases it is a polynomial in \(p^ s\) and in the last case one gets two distinct polynomials depending on whether \(p\) is even or not. These numbers were also obtained by \textit{D. G. Glynn} [J. Comb. Theory A 49, 29-66 (1988; Zbl 0661.51009)]. Segre's problems on arcs in projective space or equivalently about MDS codes, can be reformulated in terms of \(f_{k,n,p}(s)\).