Paper 2, Section II, I

Coding and Cryptography
Part II, 2020

Let CC be the Hamming (n,nd)(n, n-d) code of weight 3 , where n=2d1,d>1n=2^{d}-1, d>1. Let HH be the parity-check matrix of CC. Let ν(j)\nu(j) be the number of codewords of weight jj in CC.

(i) Show that for any two columns h1h_{1} and h2h_{2} of HH there exists a unique third column h3h_{3} such that h3=h2+h1h_{3}=h_{2}+h_{1}. Deduce that ν(3)=n(n1)/6\nu(3)=n(n-1) / 6.

(ii) Show that CC contains a codeword of weight nn.

(iii) Find formulae for ν(n1),ν(n2)\nu(n-1), \nu(n-2) and ν(n3)\nu(n-3). Justify your answer in each case.