Paper 2, Section II, G

Coding and Cryptography
Part II, 2011

Define a cyclic code. Show that there is a bijection between the cyclic codes of length nn and the factors of Xn1X^{n}-1 over the field F2\mathbb{F}_{2} of order 2 .

What is meant by saying that α\alpha is a primitive nnth root of unity in a finite field extension KK of F2\mathbb{F}_{2} ? What is meant by saying that CC is a BCH code of length nn with defining set {α,α2,,αδ1}\left\{\alpha, \alpha^{2}, \ldots, \alpha^{\delta-1}\right\} ? Show that such a code has minimum distance at least δ\delta.

Suppose that KK is a finite field extension of F2\mathbb{F}_{2} in which X71X^{7}-1 factorises into linear factors. Show that if β\beta is a root of X3+X2+1X^{3}+X^{2}+1 then β\beta is a primitive 7 th root of unity and β2\beta^{2} is also a root of X3+X2+1X^{3}+X^{2}+1. Quoting any further results that you need show that the BCH\mathrm{BCH} code of length 7 with defining set {β,β2}\left\{\beta, \beta^{2}\right\} is the Hamming code.

[Results on the Vandermonde determinant may be used without proof provided they are quoted correctly.]