On the number of error correcting codes

TL;DR

This paper establishes an upper bound on the number of q-ary t-error correcting codes of length n, confirming a conjecture for a broad range of t values and extending previous results.

Contribution

It proves a new upper bound on the number of error-correcting codes for larger t, generalizing prior work and confirming a conjecture.

Findings

Upper bound of 2^{(1 + o(1)) H_q(n,t)} on code count

Extension of previous results to larger t ranges

Confirmation of a conjecture by Balogh, Treglown, and Wagner

Abstract

We show that for a fixed $q$, the number of $q$-ary $t$-error correcting codes of length $n$ is at most $2^{(1 + o(1)) H_q(n,t)}$ for all $t \leq (1 - q^{-1})n - C_q\sqrt{n \log n}$ (for sufficiently large constant $C_q$), where $H_q(n, t) = q^n / V_q(n,t)$ is the Hamming bound and $V_q(n,t)$ is the cardinality of the radius $t$ Hamming ball. This proves a conjecture of Balogh, Treglown, and Wagner, who showed the result for $t = o(n^{1/3} (\log n)^{-2/3})$.