Two applications of relative difference sets: Difference triangles and negaperiodic autocorrelation functions

Abstract

The well-known difference sets have various connections with sequences and their correlation properties. It is the purpose of this note to give two more applications of the (not so well known) relative difference sets: we use them to construct difference triangles (based on an idea of A. Ling) and we show that a certain nonexistence result for semiregular relative difference sets implies the nonexistence of negaperiodic autocorrelation sequences (answering a question of Parker [Even length binary sequence families with low negaperiodic autocorrelation, in: Applied Algebra, Algebraic Algorithms and Error-correcting Codes, Melbourne, 2001, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 2227, Springer, Berlin, 2001, pp. 200–209.]).