On toric codes and multivariate Vandermonde matrices

Abstract

Toric codes are a class of m-dimensional cyclic codes introduced recently by Hansen (Coding theory, cryptography and related areas (Guanajuato, 1998), pp 132–142, Springer, Berlin, 2000; Appl Algebra Eng Commun Comput 13:289–300, 2002), and studied in Joyner (Appl Algebra Eng Commun Comput 15:63–79, 2004) and Little and Schenck (SIAM Discrete Math, 2007). They may be defined as evaluation codes obtained from monomials corresponding to integer lattice points in an integral convex polytope $$P \subseteq {\mathbb{R}}^m$$. As such, they are in a sense a natural extension of Reed–Solomon codes. Several articles cited above use intersection theory on toric varieties to derive bounds on the minimum distance of some toric codes. In this paper, we will provide a more elementary approach that applies equally well to many toric codes for all $$m \ge 2$$. Our methods are based on a sort of multivariate generalization of Vandermonde determinants that has also been used in the study of multivariate polynomial interpolation. We use these Vandermonde determinants to determine the minimum distance of toric codes from simplices and rectangular polytopes. We also prove a general result showing that if there is a unimodular integer affine transformation taking one polytope P 1 to a second polytope P 2, then the corresponding toric codes are monomially equivalent (hence have the same parameters). We use this to begin a classification of two-dimensional cyclic toric codes with small dimension.