Construction of quasi-cyclic self-dual codes (Q413565)

This paper studies construction and classification of quasi-cyclic (QC) self-dual codes over a finite field \(\mathbb F_q\) under permutation and monomial equivalence. An \(\ell\)-quasi-cyclic code of length \(m\ell\) over a finite field \(\mathbb F_q\) is a linear code which is invariant under the operation of cyclic shift by \(\ell\) positions. Such a code can be viewed as an \(R_m\)-submodule of \(R_m^\ell\), where \(R_m=\frac{\mathbb F_q[x]}{\langle x^m-1\rangle}\). The authors prove that every \(\ell\)-QC self-dual code of length \(m\ell\) over \(\mathbb F_q\) can be obtained by the \textit{building-up} construction, provided that char(\(\mathbb F_q) =2\) or \(q\equiv 1(\text{mod}~4)\), \(m\) is a prime \(p\), and \(q\) is a primitive element of \(\mathbb F_p\). They determine possible weight enumerators of a binary \(\ell\)-QC self-dual code of length \(p\ell\) (with \(p\) a prime) in terms of divisibility by \(p\). Using their building-up construction, the authors classify binary cubic self-dual codes of lengths up to 24, and construct new binary cubic \((m=3)\) self-dual codes of lengths 30, 36, 42, 48 (type I), 54 and 66. The authors also give a complete classification of all binary quintic \((m=5)\) self-dual codes of even lengths \(5\ell \leq 30\) and construct such codes of lengths 40, 50 and 60. For various values of \(m\) and \(q\), the authors obtain quintic self-dual codes over \(\mathbb F_3\) and \(\mathbb F_4\) and septic \((m=7)\) self-dual codes over \(\mathbb F_2\), \(\mathbb F_4\) and \(\mathbb F_5\) which are optimal or have the best known parameters. In particular, for \(m=5\), a new 8-QC self-dual \([40,20,12]\) code over \(\mathbb F_3\) and a new 6-QC self-dual \([30,15,10]\) code over \(\mathbb F_4\) are obtained. For \(m=7\), a new 4-QC self-dual \([28,14,9]\) code over \(\mathbb F_4\) and a new 6-QC self-dual \([42,21,12]\) code over \(\mathbb F_4\) are obtained.