Line polar Grassmann codes of orthogonal type (Q899566)

Let \(W\) be a vector space. An \([N, K, d_{\min}]_q\) projective system \(\Omega \subseteq \mathrm{PG}(W)\) is a set of \(N\) points spanning \(\mathrm{PG}(K - 1, q) \leq \mathrm{PG}(W)\) such that there is a hyperplane \(\Sigma\) of \(\mathrm{PG}(K - 1, q)\) with \(\#(\Omega \setminus \Sigma) = d_{\min}\) and for any hyperplane \(\Sigma^{\prime}\) of \(\mathrm{PG}(K -1, q)\) \(\#(\Omega \setminus \Sigma) \geq d_{\min}\). A \([N, K, d_{\min}]_q\) projective system corresponds to a linear code with the same parameters. Let \(\mathcal G_{2n+1,k}\) be the Grassmannian of the \(k\)-subspaces of a vector space \(V:= V(2n+1,q)\), \(k\leq n\), and let \(\eta: V \to \mathbb{F}_q\) be a non-degenerate quadratic form over \(V\). Consider the Plücker embedding \(\varepsilon_k: \mathcal G_{2n+1,k} \to \mathrm{PG}(\bigwedge ^k V)\) defined by \(\varepsilon_k( \langle v_1,\ldots,v_k\rangle) = \langle v_1\wedge \cdots \wedge v_k \rangle\). The orthogonal Grassmannian \(\Delta_{n,k}\) is a geometry having as points the \(k\)-subspaces of \(V\) totally singular for \(\eta\). Let \(\varepsilon _{k}(\Delta_{n,k}) = \{\varepsilon_k(\overline{X}_k) : \overline{X}_k \text{ is a point of } \Delta_{n,k}\}\) and let \(\mathcal{P}_{n,k}\) be the code arising from the projective system \(\varepsilon _{k}(\Delta_{n,k})\). The main result of the paper is the following. {Theorem.} For \(q\) odd, the minimum distance \(d_{min}\) of the orthogonal Grassmann code \(\mathcal{P}_{n,2}\) is \(d_{min} = q^{4n-5} - q^{3n-4}\). Furthermore, for \(n > 2\) all words of minimum weight are projectively equivalent; for \(n = 2\) there are two different classes of projectively equivalent minimum weight codewords.