The degree of functions and weights in linear codes. (Q5939238)

A relationship has previously been established between gaps in the weight distribution of binary Reed-Muller codes of low order and constraints on the weight distribution of arbitrary binary linear codes. This relationship has been exploited in the nonexistence proofs of several binary linear codes. A similar connection is established in this paper between the properties of the weight distribution of low-dimensional generalized Reed-Muller codes and that of \(q\)-ary linear codes. Restrictions on the weight distribution of linear codes over an arbitrary field are obtained and these are used in the nonexistence proofs of ternary linear codes with parameters [74, 10, 44], [82, 6, 53] and [96, 6, 62].