Sharper upper bounds for $q$-ary and constant-weight $B_2$ codes
Abstract
We derive refined entropy upper bounds for -ary codes by exploiting the Fourier structure of the i.i.d. difference distribution . Since the pmf of is an autocorrelation, its Fourier series is a nonnegative trigonometric polynomial of degree at most . This leads to a natural convex relaxation over candidate difference distributions, equivalently expressible through an infinite family of positive semidefinite Toeplitz constraints. The resulting formulation admits a simple Gram interpretation and yields certified upper bounds through truncated semidefinite programs. Combined with the prefix-suffix method, this gives improved asymptotic rate upper bounds for -ary codes; in particular, for the resulting values improve on the best bounds known in the literature. We also study binary constant-weight codes. Extending the distance-distribution method of Cohen, Litsyn, and Z\'emor to the constant-weight setting, and combining it with Litsyn's asymptotic linear-programming bound for constant-weight codes, we derive a new upper bound on the constant-weight rate.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.27639,
title = {Sharper upper bounds for $q$-ary and constant-weight $B_2$ codes},
author = {Stefano Della Fiore},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.27639},
year = {2026}
}