Computing the ball size of frequency permutations under Chebyshev distance (Q417597)

Let \(S_n^\lambda\) be the set of all permutations over the multiset \(\{1,\dots ,1,\dots ,m,\dots , m\}\) (\(\lambda\;1\)'s and \(m\)'s) where \(n=m\lambda\). A frequency permutation array (FPA) of minimum distance \(d\) is a subset of \(S_n^\lambda\) in which every two elements have distance at least \(d\). FPA's have many applications related to error correcting codes. In coding theory, the Gilbert-Varshamov bound and the sphere-packing bound are derived from the size of balls of certain radii. The authors propose two efficient algorithms that compute the ball size of frequency permutations under Chebyshev distance. Both methods extend previous know results by \textit{M. Schwartz} [Linear Algebra Appl. 430, No. 4, 1364--1374 (2009; Zbl 1163.65022)].