Parity check systems, perfect codes and codes over Frobenius rings

Abstract: This thesis consists of five papers related to coding theory. The first four papers are mainly devoted to perfect 1-error correcting binary codes. The fifth paper concerns codes over finite Abelian groups and finite commutative Frobenius rings.In Paper A we construct a new class of perfect binary codes of length 15. These codes can not be obtained by a construction of Phelps and Solov’eva. The verification of the existence of these kind of codes gives an answer to a question by Zinoviev and Zinoviev from 2003.In Paper B the concept of extended equivalence for binary codes is introduced. A linear code L'C, which is an invariant for this equivalence relation, is associated with every perfect binary code C. By using L'C we give, in some particular cases, a complete enumeration of the extended equivalence classes of perfect binary codes.In Paper C and D we prove that there exist perfect binary codes and extended perfect binary codes with a trivial symmetry group for most admissible cases of lengths and ranks. The results of these two papers have, together with previously known results, completely solved the problem of for which lengths and ranks there exist perfect binary codes with a trivial symmetry group, except in a handful of cases.In Paper E the concept of parity check matrices of linear codes over finite fields is generalized to parity check systems of both linear and nonlinear codes over finite Abelian groups and finite commutative Frobenius rings. A parity check system is a concatenation of two matrices and can be found by the use of Fourier analysis over finite Abelian groups. It is shown how some fundamental properties of a code can be derived from the set of columns or the set of rows in an associated parity check system. Furthermore, in Paper E, Cayley graphs and integral group rings are associated with parity check systems in order to investigate some problems in coding theory.