Near MDS and near quantum MDS codes via orthogonal arrays

Abstract

Near MDS (NMDS) codes are closely related to interesting objects in finite geometry and have nice applications in combinatorics and cryptography. But there are many unsolved problems about construction of NMDS codes. In this paper, by using symmetrical orthogonal arrays (OAs), we construct a lot of NMDS, $m$-MDS and almost extremal NMDS codes. Quantum error-correcting codes (QECCs) play a central role in quantum information processing and can protect quantum information from various quantum noises. We present a general method for constructing QECCs over mixed alphabets through asymmetrical OAs. Since quantum maximum distance separable (QMDS) codes over mixed alphabets with the dimension equal to one have not been found in all the literature so far, the definition of a near quantum maximum distance separable (NQMDS) code over mixed alphabets is proposed. By using asymmetrical OAs, we obtain many such codes.