A probabilistic construction of maximum $h$-scattered subspaces

Source abstract

Let $1\le h\le n-2$ and $g=\gcd(n,h+1)$. We prove that, for every prime power $q$, a maximum $h$-scattered $\mathbb{F}_q$-subspace of $V(r,q^n)$ exists whenever $(h+1)\mid rn$ and $$r\ge\frac{h+1}{g}\bigl(h(n-h-2)+1\bigr).$$ In particular, for fixed $n$ and minimum distance $δ\in\{2,\ldots,n-1\}$, $\mathbb{F}_{q^n}$-linear MRD codes of length $N$ exist for every $q$ and every sufficiently large $N$ such that $n$ divides $(n-δ+1)N$, with a bound on $N$ depending only on $n$ and $δ$. We take the $\mathbb{F}_{q^s}$-span of the columns of a random matrix $A$ over the algebra $R=\mathbb{F}_{q^n}\otimes_{\mathbb{F}_q}\mathbb{F}_{q^s}$, for a suitable $s$. Such a subspace is maximum $h$-scattered if and only if the kernel of $A$ contains no nonzero vector whose expansion with respect to an $\mathbb{F}_q$-basis of $\mathbb{F}_{q^s}$ has rank weight at most $h+1$. When $\gcd(n,s)=1$, $R$ is a field, and a first-moment argument, counting these vectors up to multiplication by $\mathbb{F}_{q^n}^*\mathbb{F}_{q^s}^*$, shows that with positive probability the kernel contains none of them if $s>h(n-h-2)$. When $d=\gcd(n,s)>1$, $R$ is a product of $d$ fields, and vectors vanishing in some factors lie in the kernel with larger probability. We control them by proving that, for an $(h+1)$-dimensional $\mathbb{F}_q$-subspace $D$ of $\mathbb{F}_{q^n}$, the elements of $D\otimes_{\mathbb{F}_q}\mathbb{F}_{q^s}$ vanishing outside $k$ given factors, $0<k<d$, form an $\mathbb{F}_{q^s}$-space of dimension at most $(h+1)k/d$, with equality only if $D$ is linear over a subfield of $\mathbb{F}_{q^n}$ larger than $\mathbb{F}_q$. Taking $s=gr/(h+1)$ gives the bound on $r$. Finally, if $(n-h-1)\mid(h+1)$, then for every $r$ satisfying the above inequality there is an $h$-scattered $\mathbb{F}_q$-subspace of $V(r,q^n)$ of dimension $\lfloor rn/(h+1)\rfloor$, without a divisibility condition on $rn$.