Snake-in-the-Box Codes for Rank Modulation under Kendall's $\tau$-Metric

Abstract

For a Gray code in the scheme of rank modulation for flash memories, the codewords are permutations and two consecutive codewords are obtained using a push-to-the-top operation. We consider snake-in-the-box codes under Kendall's $\tau$-metric, which is a Gray code capable of detecting one Kendall's $\tau$-error. We answer two open problems posed by Horovitz and Etzion. Firstly, we prove the validity of a construction given by them, resulting in a snake of size $M_{2n+1}=\frac{(2n+1)!}{2}-2n+1$. Secondly, we come up with a different construction aiming at a longer snake of size $M_{2n+1}=\frac{(2n+1)!}{2}-2n+3$. The construction is applied successfully to $S_7$.