On the Maximal Length of MDS Elliptic Codes
Abstract
The determination of the maximal length of maximum distance separable (MDS) codes arising from elliptic curves is a central problem in coding theory. For an elliptic curve over , let denote the maximal length of a -ary MDS elliptic code of dimension . It was recently shown that for and , with equality for odd when is an odd square. This paper investigates the remaining open cases, namely even dimension , non-square and fields of characteristic , and provides a complete resolution of the tightness question for the two natural parity regimes of . We prove that if the support of (used to define the code) consists of -rational points, the bound decreases to for even . Without this restriction, we construct MDS codes attaining for even . More generally, we establish when is even, and when it is odd.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2605.29439,
title = {On the Maximal Length of MDS Elliptic Codes},
author = {Haojie Chen and Chuangqiang Hu and Junjie Huang and Chang-An Zhao},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.29439},
year = {2026}
}