An Open Problem on NSC Quasi-Unitary Matrices and Its Application to Quantum Codes

Matrix-product (MP) codes provide an efficient approach for constructing long classical codes by combining a defining matrix with several shorter constituent codes. Employing non-singular by columns (NSC) quasi-unitary matrices as the defining matrices of MP codes enables the construction of various types of quantum codes. The existence of infinite families ofN×NNSC quasi-unitary matrices over Fq2forN = qorq+2 ≤ N ≤q2, whereq≠ 2 is a prime power, was posed as an open problem in the literature and remains largely unresolved. In this paper, we introduce a novel method for constructing NSC quasi-unitary matrices based on a generalized orthogonality relation for cyclic groups. We prove that (2m+ 1) × (2m+ 1) NSC quasi-unitary matrices always exist over Fq2whenever 2m| (q2–1). This result establishes, for the first time, the existence of six new infinite families of NSC quasi-unitary matrices, providing solutions to the aforementioned open problem. The number of such matrices within our framework is also determined. As a key application, we leverage NSC quasi-unitary matrices to construct optimal pure quantum (r; δ)-locally repairable codes (LRCs). We propose an effective method for constructing optimal pure quantum (r; δ)- LRCs from MP codes whose defining matrices are NSC quasiunitary matrices. Based on this method, we explicitly construct two new infinite families of optimal pure quantum (r; δ)-LRCs with flexible parameters.