Semidefinite and linear programming bounds for sum-rank-metric codes and non-existence results
Abstract
The sum-rank metric provides a unifying framework that generalizes both the celebrated Hamming and rank metrics, and has found applications in areas such as network coding, distributed storage, and space-time coding. A central problem is to determine the maximum size of a code with prescribed minimum distance. In this paper, we derive new sharp upper bounds on the size of a sum-rank-metric code using spectral and optimization techniques, including a semidefinite programming (SDP) bound that can outperform the best existing bounds based on computational experiments. Furthermore, we compare the Delsarte linear programming (LP) bound and a recent eigenvalue LP bound, and show equivalences between them, with particular emphasis on extremal regimes of the sum-rank metric. Finally, we show how to use the several SDP, LP and eigenvalue bounds to prove non-existence results for certain optimal and perfect sum-rank metric codes. Our results suggest that the combination of spectral and optimization methods effectively captures the hybrid nature of the sum-rank metric, providing new techniques that overcome the limitations of classical coding-theoretic approaches.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2604.27909,
title = {Semidefinite and linear programming bounds for sum-rank-metric codes and non-existence results},
author = {Aida Abiad and Antonina P. Khramova and Sven C. Polak and Ferdinando Zullo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.27909},
year = {2026}
}