A new upper bound on the minimal distance of self-dual codes
John H. Conway, Neil J.A. Sloane · IEEE Transactions on Information Theory · 1990
It is shown that the minimal distance d of a binary self-dual code of length n>or=74 is at most 2((n+6)/10). This bound is a consequence of some new conditions on the weight enumerator of a self-dual code obtained by considering a particular translate of the code, called its shadow. These conditions also enable one to find the highest possible minimal distance of a self-dual code for all n>or=60; to show that self-dual codes with dor=22, with d>or=8 exist precisely for n=24, 32 and n>or=26, and with d>or=10 exist precisely for n>or=46; and to show that there are exactly eight self-dual codes of length 32 with d=8. Several of the self-dual codes of length 34 have trivial group (this appears to be the smallest length where this can happen).>