The Cayley graphs associated with some quasi-perfect Lee codes are Ramanujan graphs

Abstract

Let ${\mathbb{Z}}_n[i]$ be the ring of Gaussian integers modulo a positive integer $n$. Very recently, Camarero and Martínez [IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, {\bf 62} (2016), 1183--1192], showed that for every prime number $p>5$ such that $p\equiv \pm 5(\mathrm{mod}12)$, the Cayley graph ${\mathcal{G}}_p=\text{Cay}({\mathbb{Z}}_p[i],S_2)$, where $S_2$ is the set of units of ${\mathbb{Z}}_p[i]$, induces a 2-quasi-perfect Lee code over ${\mathbb{Z}}_p^m$, where $m=2\lfloor \frac{p}{4}\rfloor$. They also conjectured that ${\mathcal{G}}_p$ is a Ramanujan graph for every prime $p$ such that $p\equiv 3(\mathrm{mod}4)$. In this paper, we solve this conjecture. Our main tools are Deligne's bound from 1977 for estimating a particular kind of trigonometric sum and a result of Lovász from 1975 (or of Babai from 1979) which gives the eigenvalues of Cayley graphs of finite Abelian groups. Our proof techniques may motivate more work in the interactions between spectral graph theory, character theory, and coding theory, and may provide new ideas towards the famous Golomb--Welch conjecture on the existence of perfect Lee codes.