1. Introduction
In contrast to classical information theory, quantum information theory is a relatively emerging field [
1,
2,
3]. The concept of quantum error-correcting codes (QECCs) was initially introduced by Shor [
4] and Steane [
5], with a construction method outlined by Calderbank et al. [
6]. Subsequently, researchers have explored various approaches to utilize classical error-correcting codes to create new quantum codes (QECCs). The quantum code database remains quite limited when compared to classical block codes. The existing database [
7] encompasses finite fields of order up to 9, but it focuses exclusively on QECCs for
. Some static tables of quantum codes are available in [
8,
9], building upon the work in [
10]. The online tables [
9] might have been overlooked by many researchers.
The field of quantum error-correcting codes has seen remarkable growth since the initial realization that such codes could safeguard quantum information, which is analogous to how classical error-correcting codes protects classical information. Shor’s [
4] pioneering work led to the discovery of the first quantum error-correcting code. In 1998, Calderbank et al. [
6] provided a systematic method for constructing quantum codes from classical error-correcting codes. Many researchers have concentrated on using Calderbank–Shor–Steane (CSS) construction to produce quantum codes from linear codes that contain their duals (see [
11,
12,
13,
14]).
Qian et al. [
15] initially presented the construction of quantum codes from cyclic codes of odd length over the chain ring
, where
. Subsequently, Kai and Zhu [
16] introduced a technique for generating quantum codes from cyclic codes of odd length over the finite chain ring
. Qian [
17] proposed a novel approach for constructing quantum error-correcting codes from cyclic codes over the finite non-chain ring
, where
of any length. Motivated by this study, Ashraf and Mohammad [
18] obtained quantum codes from cyclic codes over the non-chain ring
, where
,
,
,
, and
p is an odd prime.
Constacyclic codes, a robust extension of cyclic codes over finite non-chain rings, have proven to be a prolific source of new quantum codes. Recent research by coding theorists has explored constacyclic codes extensively. Distinguished investigations include Li et al. [
19] over
, with
,
, and
; Ma et al.’s [
20] contributions over
, with
; and Gao and Wang’s [
21] over
, where
. These studies have led to the construction of numerous significantly improved quantum codes, all originating from dual-containing constacyclic codes.
In light of these developments, it becomes evident that constacyclic codes over finite non-chain rings represent a valuable resource for generating new and better quantum codes. Therefore, this article delves into the exploration of constacyclic codes within the framework of the non-chain ring , where , , , and , for a prime p. The objective is to find new quantum codes over the finite field . The article makes two significant contributions:
Comprehensive study of the structure of constacyclic codes with the length l over .
The construction of better quantum codes concerning their parameters, surpassing those previously documented in the literature.
A noteworthy aspect of this research involves the presentation of computational findings [
22], highlighting the substantial impact of this work on the development of new quantum codes.
2. Preliminaries
Let
be a finite field of order
p (an odd prime). A subspace
of
is called a linear code of length
m over
, and its members are called the codewords. Let
, where
,
,
, and
be a finite commutative ring. Remember that a linear code
C over the ring
of length
n is essentially an
-submodule of the module
. One can also view an element
in
C as a polynomial
within the ring
. A linear code
C is called a
-constacyclic code of length
n over
if and only if it is an
-submodule in the module
. Many researchers have extensively explored constacyclic codes over finite fields and finite commutative Frobenius rings [
23,
24,
25,
26,
27]. Consider the elements of
as follows:
We can verify that
, and
(Kronecker delta) for
. Consequently, the set
forms a set of non-zero pairwise orthogonal idempotent elements in
. This implies that
can be expressed as a sum of submodules as follows:
Therefore, any element
can be uniquely written as
where
are the elements of
.
Suppose that
is the group of invertible matrices of order
n over
and let
in such a way that
, where
is the transpose of the matrix
,
is the identity matrix of order 6, and
. With the above notation, we define a Gray map associated with an invertible matrix
as follows:
We can extend the Gray map ∇ for each component individually, as follows:
where
. Here, we introduce the Lee weight for the vector
as
, where
(resp.
) denotes the Lee weight (resp. the Hamming weight). The Lee weight of
and the Lee distance from
r to
, is established as
. The Lee distance
for the code
C is defined as follows:
It is notable that the Gray map ∇ is a linear map over
that preserves distances and mapping vectors from
to
. Since the Gray map ∇ is bijective, it follows that
forms a
linear code over
, where
is equal to
.
The Euclidean inner product of any two vectors, and in is defined as . The dual code of C is formulated as . A code C is called dual-containing if , self-orthogonal if , and self-dual if .
Example 1. Let be a finite commutative non-chain ring. Then, we have and . Thus, the orthogonal idempotent elements in arewhere . By Chinese Remainder Theorem, we have Therefore, any element can be expressed as follows:Hence, the Gray map can be established as follows:where , and , wherewhich has the property that Example 2. Let be a finite commutative non-chain ring, where and are non-zero elements of . Then, we have and . The orthogonal idempotent elements in are as follows:where . By Chinese Remainder Theorem, we have Therefore, any element can be expressed as follows:The Gray map can be established as follows:where , and , wherewhich has the property that Theorem 1. The Gray map defined in Equation (2) is linear and isometric. Proof. To prove that ∇ is a linear map, assume that
and
are any two elements of
and
is a non-zero scalar in
. Then, we have
This ensures that ∇ is a linear map. To prove that ∇ is an isometry, we shall show that the Lee distance and the Hamming distance of code
C are the same. As
, then by definition of the Lee distance, we see that
Therefore, the Gray map ∇ is an isometry. □
Theorem 2. Let C be a linear code with parameters over .
- (i)
Then, is a linear code with parameters over , where and are the same.
- (ii)
The image is self-orthogonal over , provided C is self-orthogonal over .
- (iii)
The image is a dual-containing code over , provided C is a dual-containing code over .
- (iv)
C is a self-dual code over if and only if is a self-dual code over .
Proof. - (i)
The proof follows by Theorem 1.
- (ii)
If
C is self-orthogonal over
. Then, for any codewords
and
in
C, where
and
are elements of
for
, we have
. This suggests that
for
. Let
be any two elements, then some
exists such that
and
, i.e.,
where
such that
,
. Now, we have
Thus, we have for all if C is self-orthogonal over . Hence, is a self-orthogonal code of length over , provided C is a self-orthogonal code over .
- (iii)
Suppose that
, then by the linearity of ∇, we have
. To prove that
is dual-containing, it remains to show that
. For this, let
and
, where
and
are elements of
for
. Now,
gives that
for
. Consider
Now, suggests that . Thus, we have . Contrarily, ∇ is a bijective linear map, so the sizes of and are the same. Thus, . Hence, is a dual-containing code over provided C is a dual-containing code over .
- (iv)
It follows from part (iii).
□
Theorem 3 ([
11])
. Let be a linear code over . Then:- (i)
;
- (ii)
C is self-dual over if are self-dual codes over for .
Here, we define the direct sum and the direct product as defined by Dinh et al. [
24] in the following ways:
Suppose that
C is a linear code with length
l over
. Consider the following sets:
It can be seen that
for
is a linear code with length
l over
. Therefore, we can express a linear code
C with length
l over
as
. If
is the generator matrix of
for
, then the generator matrix
of the Gray image
is given as follows:
3. -Constacyclic Codes over
A constacyclic code is an important class of linear error-correcting codes. It is a generalization of cyclic codes, which are themselves a subset of linear codes. Suppose that is a unit element in . Then, a linear code C with length l over is called a -constacyclic code if, for any codeword in C, it satisfies the property that is again a member of C. In particular, if , then -constacyclic code C becomes a cyclic code, and if , then C becomes a negacyclic code.
Lemma 1. Let be a non-zero element. Then, the element is a unit element in if are unit elements in . Moreover, when is a unit element, then its inverse is given by .
Proof. Suppose that
is a unit element. Then, an element
exists such that
. Using the idempotent orthogonality of
for
, we have
. Putting the values of
for
and comparing the constant term and coefficients of
, we obtain
Solving these equations, we obtain
,
,
,
,
, and
. Therefore, we have
.
The converse part can be performed in a similar way. □
Theorem 4. Let be a linear code over and be a unit element. Then, C is a Λ-constacyclic code over if is a -constacyclic code for over .
Proof. Suppose that
C is a
-constacyclic code with length
l over
. If
, where
such that
for
and
, then we have
. Thus, the
-constacyclic shift of
c is
, where
Therefore, we obtain
, which leads to
Therefore,
is a
-constacyclic code for
of length
l over
.
Conversely, assume that
is a
-constacyclic code of length
l over
for
. Then, for a vector
, we have
. Thus, we have
Therefore, if is a -constacyclic code for of length l over , then C is a -constacyclic code over . □
Theorem 5. Let be a Λ-constacyclic code over and a unique monic polynomial of the lowest degree such that and for . Then, , where and .
Proof. Suppose that is a -constacyclic code with length l over , then each is a -constacyclic code over for . Therefore, is a principal ideal generated by a monic polynomial of lowest degree such that for . Thus, are the generator polynomials of C.
If we take , then . Furthermore, we see that implies that . Thus, we conclude that .
Moreover, we have
such that
. Thus, polynomials
exist such that
for
. Thus, we have
Thus, we conclude that
. □
Corollary 1. Let be a Λ-constacyclic code over , and such that for . Then:
- (i)
is a -constacyclic code over ;
- (ii)
, where is the reciprocal polynomial of , which is defined as for ;
- (iii)
.
4. Dual-Containing -Constacyclic Codes
The dual-containing code is a very important class of code for the construction of quantum error-correcting codes.
Definition 1. Suppose that C is a Λ-constacyclic code of length l over , where Λ is a unit element of . Then, C is said to be dual-containing if .
Proposition 1. Let C be a Λ-constacyclic code over , where . If C is a non-trivial dual-containing code, then for , i.e., .
Remark 1. Suppose that C is a Λ-constacyclic code over , then from Proposition 1 we conclude that:
- (i)
If , then and is a cyclic code over for .
- (ii)
If , then and is a negacyclic code over for .
- (iii)
If and , then is a cyclic code, and is a negacyclic code over for .
Example 3. Let C be a -constacyclic code over , then implies that is a cyclic code, and further implies that is a negacyclic code for over .
Example 4. Let C be a -constacyclic code over , then implies that is a cyclic code for , and further implies that is a negacyclic code for over .
Example 5. Let C be a -constacyclic code over , then implies that is a cyclic code for , and further implies that is a negacyclic code for over .
Lemma 2 ([
6])
. Let be a -constacyclic code with generator polynomial over . Then, is a dual-containing code if , where and is the reciprocal polynomial of , for . Lemma 3. Let C be a linear code over and be the dual of C. If ∇ is a Gray map as defined in Equation (2), then . Moreover, if C is a self-orthogonal (self-dual) code over , then is a self-orthogonal (resp. self-dual) code over . Proof. The set
forms a basis for 6-dimensional vector space
over
. An element
can be uniquely expressed as
, where
for
. Then, we have
where
such that
and
. Let
, where
for
. Then, we have
, where
. Suppose that
. Then, we obtain that
implies that
Since
K is linearly independent, we obtain
for
. Also, we have
and
. Consider
Therefore,
, i.e.,
. Since the Gray map ∇ is bijective,
suggests that
. If
C is a self-orthogonal code, then
, and hence,
. Therefore,
is a self-orthogonal code. □
Theorem 6 ([
25])
. Let and be two linear codes over with . Then, a QECC exists with parameters , where . Moreover, if is a dual-containing code, then a QECC with parameters exists, where . Theorem 7 ([
6])
. Let C be a Λ-constacyclic code over having a generator polynomial . Then, C is dual-containing if , where . The dual-containing cyclic and negacyclic codes over are provided by Theorem 7. Using this outcome, we can now ascertain the prerequisites and requirements for -constacyclic codes over to have their duals, as demonstrated in the following theorem.
Theorem 8. Let be a Λ-constacyclic code of length l over , where and , where is the generating polynomial of code over for . Then, C is a dual-containing code if and only if , where for .
Proof. Suppose that is a -constacyclic code over , where . Then, by Theorem 4, the code is a -constacyclic code with generating polynomial over . If C is a dual-containing code, then we have . Since this expression is unique, we have . Therefore, by Lemma 2 we have . □
Corollary 2. Let be a Λ-constacyclic code over . Then, C is a dual-containing code over if and only if is a dual-containing code over for .
Theorem 9. Let be a Λ-constacyclic code of length l over , and ∇ be the Gray map. If has parameters , where is the dimension of and is the Lee distance of C, if C is a dual-containing code, then a QECC exists with parameters over .
Proof. Suppose that C is a dual-containing code over and ∇ is a Gray map. Then, is also a dual-containing code with parameters over . Therefore, by Theorem 6, a QECC with parameters exists over . □
Example 6. Let be a finite non-chain ring. Suppose that is a unit element in . Then, and . Thus, in , we haveLet , , and be the generator polynomials of for , respectively. Then, is a -constacyclic code of length 9 over . Let , as given in Example 1, then and the Gray image has the parameters . Moreover, for ; thus, by Theorem 8, we find that C is a dual-containing code; so, by Theorem 9, we have a QECC , which is a new QECC with this parameter. Remark 2. In the previous example, we have seen that the Gray image is a linear code with parameters over the field . Specifically, for a code with a length 9, the Gray image’s length is 54, and its dimension is equal to the rational sum of the dimensions of the individual codes, yielding 44 as a result. Let denote the generator matrix of for . Then, the generator matrix for is given in Section 2. After providing the generator matrix as input to the Magma Computation System [22], it was determined that the minimum distance of is 4. Based on this computation, it is crucial to note that the minimum distance of the Gray image is greater than the distance of each . As in Example 6, , , and , while the Lee distance is 4. Notably, employing the canonical Gray map rather than the Gray map ∇ would result in a Lee distance of 1 instead of 4. Which underlines one of the primary advantages of using the Gray map ∇. Example 7. Let be a non-chain ring. Suppose that is a unit element in . Then, and . Thus, in , we haveLet , , , and be the generator polynomials of for , respectively. Then, is a -constacyclic code with length 15 over . Let , as given in Example 2, then and the Gray image has the parameters . Moreover, for ; thus, by Theorem 8, we find that C is a dual-containing code; hence, by Theorem 9 we have a new QECC , with this parameter. Again, here we can see that the distance of for . Example 8. Let be a non-chain ring. Suppose that is a unit element in . Then, and . Thus, in , we haveLet , , , and be the generator polynomials of for , respectively. Then, is a Λ-constacyclic code with length 35 over . Let , as given in Example 2, then and the Gray image has the parameters . Moreover, for ; thus, by Theorem 8, we find that C is a dual-containing code; so, by Theorem 9 we have an improved QECC against the existing code [14]. Here, we can see that the distance of for . Example 9. Let be a non-chain ring, as in Example 7. Suppose that is a unit element in . Then, and . Thus, in , we haveLet , , , , and be the generator polynomials of for , respectively. Then, is a -constacyclic code with length 45 over . Let , as given in Example 2, then and the Gray image has the parameters . Moreover, for ; thus, by Theorem 8, we find that C is a dual-containing code; thus, by Theorem 9 we have an improved QECC with parameters against the existing code [28]. Here, we can see that the distance of for . Example 10. Let be a non-chain ring. Suppose that is a unit element in . Then, and . Thus, in , we haveLet , , and be the generator polynomials of for , respectively. Then, is a -constacyclic code of length 9 over . Let such thatthen and the Gray image has the parameters . Moreover, for ; thus, by Theorem 8, we find that C is a dual-containing code; so, by Theorem 9, we have a new QECC with parameters . Here, one can see that the distance of for . Note: In
Table 1,
, and
represent the order of the field, the length of the code defined over
, and the unit element in
, respectively.
is a generator polynomial of
for
,
are the invertible matrices over
,
,
, respectively, used to define the Gray map ∇. The parameters of the corresponding Gray image (dual-containing code) are denoted by
.
and
represent the parameters of the new QECC and existing QECC, respectively.