Constacyclic codes over finite fields (Q690432)

Let \(\mathbb{F}_q\) be the finite field with \(q=p^m\) elements. Constacyclic codes are a generalization of cyclic codes, which can be represented by ideals in \(\mathbb{F}_q [X] / \langle X^n - \lambda \rangle\) with \(\lambda \in \mathbb{F}_q^\ast\). Therefore, any constacyclic code is generated by a factor of \(X^n - \lambda\). It follows that for \(\lambda=1\), constacylic codes are cyclic codes. In the article under review, the generators of constacyclic codes of length \(\ell^t p^s\) are characterized, where \(\ell\) is a prime different from \(p\) and \(t,s\) are non-negative integers. An equivalence relation on \(\mathbb{F}_q^\ast\) is defined to perform such classification: \(\lambda\) is said to be isometric to \(\mu\) if there is a map \(\varphi: \mathbb{F}_q [X] / \langle X^n - \lambda \rangle \to \mathbb{F}_q [X] / \langle X^n - \mu \rangle\) that preserves the Hamming distance. The authors show that the irreducible factors of the generator of a constacylic code of length \(\ell^t p^s\) are binomials and trinomials, except for codes that are isometric to cyclic codes. The theory is illustrated with examples and tables of codes, worked out with the help of the computational discrete algebra system GAP.