Acute Semigroups, the Order Bound on the Minimum Distance and the Feng-Rao Improvements

Abstract: We introduce a new class of numerical semigroups, which we call the class of {\it acute} semigroups and we prove that they generalize symmetric and pseudo-symmetric numerical semigroups, Arf numerical semigroups and the semigroups generated by an interval. For a numerical semigroup $\Lambda={\lambda_0<\lambda_1<\dots}$ denote $\nu_i=#{j\mid\lambda_i-\lambda_j\in\Lambda}$. Given an acute numerical semigroup $\Lambda$ we find the smallest non-negative integer $m$ for which the order bound on the minimum distance of one-point Goppa codes with associated semigroup $\Lambda$ satisfies $d_{ORD}(C_i)(:=\min{\nu_j\mid j>i})=\nu_{i+1}$ for all $i\geq m$. We prove that the only numerical semigroups for which the sequence $(\nu_i)$ is always non-decreasing are ordinary numerical semigroups. Furthermore we show that a semigroup can be uniquely determined by its sequence $(\nu_i)$.