Bounds on the covering radius of a lattice

Abstract

This paper depends on results of Baranovskii [1], [2]. The covering radius R(L) of an n-dimensional lattice L is the radius of smallest balls with centres at points of L which cover the whole space spanned by L. R(L) is closely related to minimal vectors of classes of the quotient . The convex hull of all minimal vectors of a class Q is a Delaunay polytope P(Q) of dimension ≤, dimension of L. Let be a maximal squared radius of P(Q) of dimension n (of dimension less than n, respectively). If , then . This is the case in the well-known Barnes-Wall and Leech lattices. Otherwise, . This is a refinement of a result of Norton ([3], Ch. 22).