Non-RS type cyclic MDS codes over finite fields via cyclotomic field reduction
This work addresses the complexity and parameter restrictions in constructing cyclic MDS codes, which are important for applications like quantum codes and finite geometry, but it is incremental as it builds on prior methods.
The paper tackles the construction of cyclic maximum distance separable (MDS) codes over finite fields by using norm reduction in cyclotomic fields, resulting in a simpler method that yields flexible parameters for non-Reed-Solomon type codes.
Cyclic maximum distance separable (MDS for short) codes are a special subclass of linear codes and have received a lot of attention, as these codes have very important applications in many areas including quantum codes, designs and finite geometry. However, the existing construction methods for cyclic MDS codes are mainly focused on strict restrictions on certain parameters or are relatively complex in their construction approaches. In this paper, we investigate this approach further via norm reduction in cyclotomic fields and present a construction method of cyclic MDS codes over finite fields. We transform the problem of verifying the MDS property over a finite field into a problem of determining non-zero minors in characteristic zero. Compared with existing construction methods, our method is relatively simple. In particular, the results of this paper show that the parameters of non-RS cyclic MDS codes are flexible and completely cover the results in [Non-Reed-Solomon Type Cyclic MDS codes, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, 71(5): 3489--3496, 2025].