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Main Authors: Liu, Hengfeng, Mesnager, Sihem, Tang, Chunming, Zheng, Xuemin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.11465
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author Liu, Hengfeng
Mesnager, Sihem
Tang, Chunming
Zheng, Xuemin
author_facet Liu, Hengfeng
Mesnager, Sihem
Tang, Chunming
Zheng, Xuemin
contents Locally recoverable codes (LRCs) have emerged as fundamental objects in modern coding theory, primarily due to their pivotal role in distributed and cloud storage systems. A major breakthrough in their construction was achieved by Tamo and Barg, who introduced the notion of \emph{good polynomials} as a key structural ingredient. In this article, we propose a natural generalization of this paradigm by introducing the concept of \emph{good rational functions}. Building upon this extension, we develop a unified and flexible framework for constructing optimal LRCs. To quantify the quality of a rational function, we embed the problem into the rich context of algebraic function field theory and Galois theory. This perspective allows us to extend the Galois-theoretic framework originally developed by Micheli for good polynomials. In particular, we derive structural and quantitative results on the number of totally split rational places associated with rational functions. Furthermore, we construct explicit families of good rational functions that outperform all good polynomials of the same degree. As a consequence, we obtain infinite families of optimal LRCs with improved parameters compared to those arising from the classical Tamo-Barg construction. These results highlight the intrinsic strength of our approach.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_11465
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Beyond Polynomials: Optimal Locally Recoverable Codes from Good Rational Functions
Liu, Hengfeng
Mesnager, Sihem
Tang, Chunming
Zheng, Xuemin
Information Theory
94B05, 12E20, 11C08
Locally recoverable codes (LRCs) have emerged as fundamental objects in modern coding theory, primarily due to their pivotal role in distributed and cloud storage systems. A major breakthrough in their construction was achieved by Tamo and Barg, who introduced the notion of \emph{good polynomials} as a key structural ingredient. In this article, we propose a natural generalization of this paradigm by introducing the concept of \emph{good rational functions}. Building upon this extension, we develop a unified and flexible framework for constructing optimal LRCs. To quantify the quality of a rational function, we embed the problem into the rich context of algebraic function field theory and Galois theory. This perspective allows us to extend the Galois-theoretic framework originally developed by Micheli for good polynomials. In particular, we derive structural and quantitative results on the number of totally split rational places associated with rational functions. Furthermore, we construct explicit families of good rational functions that outperform all good polynomials of the same degree. As a consequence, we obtain infinite families of optimal LRCs with improved parameters compared to those arising from the classical Tamo-Barg construction. These results highlight the intrinsic strength of our approach.
title Beyond Polynomials: Optimal Locally Recoverable Codes from Good Rational Functions
topic Information Theory
94B05, 12E20, 11C08
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.11465