A CONSTRUCTION OF TWO-WEIGHT CODES AND ITS APPLICATIONS

It is well-known that there exists a constant-weight $[s{\theta}_{k-1},k,sq^{k-1}]_q$ code for any positive integer s, which is an s-fold simplex code, where ${\theta}_j=(q^{j+1}-1)/(q-1)$. This gives an upper bound $n_q(k,sq^{k-1}+d){\leq}s{\theta}_{k-1}+n_q(k,d)$ for any positive integer d, where $n_q(k,d)$ is the minimum length n for which an $[n,k,d]_q$ code exists. We construct a two-weight $[s{\theta}_{k-1}+1,k,sq^{k-1}]_q$ code for $1{\leq}s{\leq}k-3$, which gives a better upper bound $n_q(k,sq^{k-1}+d){\leq}s{\theta}_{k-1}+1+n_q(k-1,d)$ for $1{\leq}d{\leq}q^s$. As another application, we prove that $n_q(5,d)={\sum_{i=0}^{4}}{\lceil}d/q^i{\rceil}$ for $q^4+1{\leq}d{\leq}q^4+q$ for any prime power q.