Minimum distance functions of complete intersections

Abstract

We study the footprint function, with respect to a monomial order, of complete intersection graded ideals in a polynomial ring with coefficients in a field. For graded ideals of dimension one, whose initial ideal is a complete intersection, we give a formula for the footprint function and a sharp lower bound for the corresponding minimum distance function. This allows us to recover a formula for the minimum distance of an affine cartesian code and the fact that in this case the minimum distance and the footprint functions coincide. Then we present an extension of a result of Alon and F\"uredi, about coverings of the cube $\{0,1\}^n$ by affine hyperplanes, in terms of the regularity of a vanishing ideal.