Higher Rank-Support Weights and q-Polymatroids

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to develop a $(q,m)$-polymatroidal approach to higher supports and higher rank-weight enumerators of rank-metric codes. In this framework, we establish analogs of several fundamental results known for matroids and linear codes, including the description of minimal supports in terms of cocircuits of truncations and a Greene-type identity relating higher rank-weight enumerators to rank generating functions. We also show that the associated $(q,m)$-polymatroid and the higher support distributions determine each other. As a further application, we derive MacWilliams-type identities for higher rank-weight enumerators.