Linear codes associated to symmetric determinantal varieties; General case

Abstract: The study of linear codes over a finite field of odd cardinality, derived from determinantal varieties obtained from symmetric matrices of bounded rank, was initiated in a paper by the authors. There, one found the minimum distance of the code obtained from evaluating homogeneous linear functions at all symmetric matrices with rank, which is, at most, a given even number. Furthermore, a conjecture for the minimum distance of codes from symmetric matrices with ranks bounded by an odd number was given. In this article, we continue the study of codes from symmetric matrices of bounded rank. A connection between the weights of the codewords of this code and Q-numbers of the association scheme of symmetric matrices is established. Consequently, we get a concrete formula for the weight distribution of these codes. Finally, we determine the minimum distance of the code obtained from evaluating homogeneous linear functions at all symmetric matrices with rank at most a given number, both when this number is odd and when it is even.