2.II.12G

Coding and Cryptography
Part II, 2006

Define a cyclic code. Show that there is a bijection between the cyclic codes of length nn, and the factors of Xn1X^{n}-1 in F2[X]\mathbb{F}_{2}[X].

If nn is an odd integer then we can find a finite extension KK of F2\mathbb{F}_{2} that contains a primitive nnth root of unity α\alpha. Show that a cyclic code of length nn with defining set {α,α2,,αδ1}\left\{\alpha, \alpha^{2}, \ldots, \alpha^{\delta-1}\right\} has minimum distance at least δ\delta. Show that if n=7n=7 and δ=3\delta=3 then we obtain Hamming's original code.

[You may quote a formula for the Vandermonde determinant without proof.]