A note on Barker sequences of even length

arXiv2104.00502MaRDI QIDQ6364341FDOQ6364341

Publication date: 1 April 2021

Abstract: A Barker sequence is a binary sequence for which all nontrivial aperiodic autocorrelations are either 0, 1 or -1. The only known Barker sequences have length 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 11 or 13. It is an old conjecture that no longer Barker sequences exist and in fact, there is an overwhelming evidence for this conjecture. For binary sequences of odd length, this conjecture is known to be true, whereas for even length it is still open, whether a Barker sequence of even length greater 4 exists. Similar to the well-known fact that a Barker sequence of odd length is necessarily skew-symmetric, we show that in the case of even length there is also a form of symmetry albeit weaker. In order to exploit this symmetry, we derive different formulas for the calculation of the aperiodic correlation. We prove by using only elementary methods that there is no Barker sequence of even length n>4 with

C_{1} = C_{3} = c d o t s = C_{f r a c n 2 - 1}

, where

C_{k}

denotes the

k

th aperiodic autocorrelation of the sequence.

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Shift register sequences and sequences over finite alphabets in information and communication theory (94A55) Combinatorial aspects of difference sets (number-theoretic, group-theoretic, etc.) (05B10) Special sequences and polynomials (11B83)

This page was built for publication: A note on Barker sequences of even length

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q6364341)