A combinatorial description of when a self-associated set of points fails to be arithmetically Gorenstein

Abstract

We prove that the set of points associated to a self-dual code with no proportional columns is arithmetically Gorenstein if and only if the code is indecomposable. This answers a question asked by Toh{\u{a}}neanu. We do so by providing a combinatorial way to compute the dimension of the Schur square of a self-dual code through a zero-one symmetrization of its generator matrix. Our approach also allows us to compute the Gorenstein defect. As a consequence, we obtain a combinatorial characterization of arithmetically Gorenstein self-associated sets of points over an algebraically closed field.