The zero short Covering Problem for finite rings

Abstract

In this work, we find the cardinality of minimal zero short covers of An for any finite local ring A, removing the restriction of D(A)^2 = 0 from the previous works in the literature. Using the structure theorem for Artinian rings, we conclude that we have solved the zero short covering problem for all finite rings. We demonstrate our results on R_k, an infinite family of finite commutative rings extensively studied in coding theory, which satisfy D(A)^2 \neq 0 for all k \geq 2.