Abstract

In this paper, we initiate a structure theory of linear codes with bounded trellis complexity. The theory is based on the observation that the family of linear codes over Fq, some permutation of which has trellis state-complexity at most w, is a minor-closed family. It then follows from a deep result of matroid theory that such codes are characterized by finitely many excluded minors. We provide the complete list of excluded minors for w = 1, and give a partial list for w = 2. We also give a polynomial-time algorithm for determining whether or nor a given code has a permutation with state-complexity at most 1.