On quasi-cyclic codes as a generalization of cyclic codes (Q714456)

Let \(q\) be a power of a prime number and \(M_{\ell}(\mathbb{F}_q)\) the ring of \(\ell\times\ell\) matrices with entries over \(\mathbb{F}_q\). Let \(m\), \(\ell\) be two positive integers and \(n=m\ell\). A linear code \(C\) is an \(\ell\)-quasi-cyclic code if a cyclic shift of any codeword \((c_0,c_1,\dots,c_{n-1})\) by \(\ell\) positions is again a codeword of \(C\). The authors prove that there is a bijection between the set of \(\ell\)-quasi-cyclic codes over \(\mathbb{F}_{q}\) of length \(m\ell\) and the left ideals of \(M_{\ell}(\mathbb{F}_q)[x]/(x^m-1)\). In other words, we may identify each \(\ell\)-quasi-cyclic code with a polynomial \(g(x)\) with coefficients over \(M_{\ell}(\mathbb{F}_q)\). It is called the generator polynomial. As for cyclic codes, the authors show that there is a relation between the generator polynomial of an \(\ell\)-quasi-cyclic code and its dual. Using this algebraic approach for quasi-cyclic codes, they define what they call quasi-BCH codes. These are the analogues to cyclic BCH codes, i.e., the set of polynomials in \(M_{\ell}(\mathbb{F}_q)[x]/(x^m-1)\) having roots \(A,A^2,\dots,A^{\delta}\), where \(A\) is a primitive root of unity (\(A^m=I^{\ell}\) plus some technical conditions). The value \(\delta\) is the designed minimum distance. They also present a decoding scheme for quasi-BCH codes using the key equation that can decode up to half of the designed minimum distance. Finally, they define quasi-cyclic evaluation codes as follows (definition copied from the paper): Let \(\ell\) be a positive integer and \(q\) be a prime power. Let \(m = q^{\ell} - 1\) and \(k \leq m\). Let \(A \in M_{\ell}(\mathbb{F}_q)\) be a primitive \(m\)-th root of unity. Let \(\pi\) be an \(\mathbb{F}_q\)-linear map from \(\mathbb{F}_q[A]\) into \(\mathbb{F}_q^{\ell}\). We denote by \(C_{A,k,\pi}\) the image of: \[ \begin{matrix} (\mathbb{F}_q[A])[X]_{<k} & \overset{ev_A}{\longrightarrow} & (\mathbb{F}_q[A])^m & \overset{\pi^{\times m}}{\longrightarrow} & (\mathbb{F}_q^\ell)^m \\ P(X) & \longmapsto & \left(P(A^0),\dots,P(A^{m-1})\right) & \longmapsto & \left(\pi(P(A^0)),\dots,\pi(P(A^{m-1}))\right). \end{matrix} \] With this new approach they are able to find a new \([189,11,125]\) code over \(\mathbb{F}_4\).