No label defined (Q4393341)

This article focusses on the binary block codes of Steiner 2-designs. A \(2-(v,k,1)\) Steiner 2-design is an incidence structure \(D=(P,B)\) with point set \(P\) of size \(v\) and with block set \(B\) of size \(b\) such that every block is incident with precisely \(k\) points, and such that two distinct points are together incident with precisely one block. The dual structure of this Steiner 2-design is the structure \(D^t=(B,P)\) with incidence as in \(D\). One of the most important classes of Steiner 2-designs is the class of unitals. These are the \(2-(m^3+1,m+1,1)\) designs. The binary code \(C\) of \(D\) is the linear subspace of \(V(v,2)\) spanned by the incidence vectors of the blocks of \(D\). The \textit{hull} of the design \(D\) with binary code \(C\) is equal to Hull\(_2(D)=C \cap C^{\perp}\). The binary code corresponding to the dual structure \(D^t\) is denoted by \(C^t\). The scope of the article is to derive properties of the code \(C^t\) for \(2-(v,k,1)\) designs. These properties are then applied to the codes \(C^t\) arising from \(2-(m^3+1,m+1,1)\) designs with \(m\) odd. It is shown that the words of odd weight in \(C^t\) have weight congruent to 1 modulo 4. The obtained results are then applied to \(2-(28,4,1)\) unitals. It is shown that the minimum weight of the code \(C^t\) is 8 or 9, and the maximum weight of a codeword is at most 57.