Weight Structure of Low/High-Rate Polar Codes and Its Applications

The structure of a linear block code is pivotal in defining fundamental properties, particularly weight distribution, and code design. In this study, we characterize the Type II structure of polar codewords with weights less than twice the minimum weight w_min, utilizing the lower triangular affine (LTA) transform. We present a closed-form formula for their enumeration. Leveraging this structure and additionally characterizing the structure of weight 2w_min, we ascertain the complete weight distribution of low-rate and, through the utilization of dual codes properties, high-rate polar codes, subcodes of Reed–Muller (RM) codes, and RMxPolar codes. Furthermore, we introduce a partial order based on the weight distribution and briefly explore its properties and applications in code construction and analysis.