Primitive idempotents in central simple algebras over Fq(t) with an application to coding theory

Abstract

We consider the algorithmic problem of computing a primitive idempotent of a central simple algebra over the field of rational functions over a finite field. The algebra is given by a set of structure constants. The problem is reduced to the computation of a division algebra Brauer equivalent to the central simple algebra. This division algebra is constructed as a cyclic algebra, once the Hasse invariants have been computed. We give an application to skew constacyclic convolutional codes.