Bounds on codes over an alphabet of five elements (Q5948966)

Let \(C\) be an \((n, M, d)_q\) code; i.e. \(C\subseteq \mathbb{Z}_q^n\) is a linear code with minimum distance \(d\) and cardinality \(M\). Fixing the parameters \(n, d, q\), denote the largest possible value of \(M\) by \(A_q(n,d)\). Any \((n, M, d)_q\) code \(C\) for which \(M= A_q(n,d)\) is called optimal. After listing some results concerning the \(q\)-ary form of the Plotkin bound and optimal codes (details are to be found e.g. in [\textit{G. Bogdanova, A. Brouwer, S. Kapralov,} and \textit{P. Östergård}, Error-correcting codes over an alphabet of four elements, Des. Codes Cryptography 23, 333-342 (2001; Zbl 1011.94029)]), the authors look at three different constructions of codes that can be used to get some good lower bounds on \(A_5(n,d)\): a construction involving the Hamming code, one involving cyclic codes and the maximum-weight clique problem, and one involving a matrix construction. Using these methods, they compute upper and lower bounds for \(A_5(n,d), n\leq 11\), and provide the best known results.