Three classes of propagation rules for generalized Reed-Solomon codes and their applications to EAQECCs

In this paper, we study the Hermitian hulls of generalized Reed-Solomon (GRS) codes over finite fields. For a given class of GRS codes, by extending the length, increasing the dimension, and extending the length and increasing the dimension at the same time, we obtain three classes of GRS codes with Hermitian hulls of arbitrary dimensions. Furthermore, based on some known $q^2$-ary Hermitian self-orthogonal GRS codes with dimension $q-1$, we obtain several classes of $q^2$-ary maximum distance separable (MDS) codes with Hermitian hulls of arbitrary dimensions. It is worth noting that the dimension of these MDS codes can be taken from $q$ to $\frac{n}{2}$, and the parameters of these MDS codes can be more flexible by propagation rules. As an application, we derive three new propagation rules for MDS entanglement-assisted quantum error correction codes (EAQECCs) constructed from GRS codes. Then, from the presently known GRS codes with Hermitian hulls, we can directly obtain many MDS EAQECCs with more flexible parameters. Finally, we present several new classes of (MDS) EAQECCs with flexible parameters, and the distance of these codes can be taken from $q+1$ to $\frac{n+2}{2}$.